How do I credit a Creative Commons image?
Credit four things: the title, the author, a link to where you found the work, and the license with a link to its terms. Creative Commons recommends this pattern, called TASL. Say so if you changed the work. For 4.0 licenses the title is optional; for 3.0 and earlier it is required.
The four parts
| Part | What to write |
|---|---|
| Title | The name of the work, if it has one. Required by CC licenses 3.0 and earlier, optional for 4.0 |
| Author | The person or organization that is licensing the work (legally, the licensor), when they have made their name available |
| Source | A link to where you found the work, so a reader can check it |
| License | The license name, with a link to its terms (for example CC BY-SA 4.0) |
If you changed the work, say what you did, for example “Cropped to a square”. The CC BY 4.0 legal code asks you to indicate that you modified the material, and to keep any earlier indication of modification.
What the legal text asks for
TASL is a recommendation. The condition itself, in section 3(a)(1) of the CC BY 4.0 legal code, is to keep the following if the licensor supplied it with the work:
- who the creator is, and anyone else designated to receive credit, in any reasonable manner the licensor asks for;
- a copyright notice;
- a notice that refers to the license;
- a notice that refers to the disclaimer of warranties;
- a link to the work, to the extent reasonably practicable.
You must also indicate that the work is licensed under the license and include its text or a link to it. Section 3(a)(2) lets you do this in any reasonable way for the medium and context, and says it may be reasonable to give a link to a page that holds the required information. So a caption, a credits page or a linked credit line can each be reasonable, depending on where the work appears.
What we tested
On 2026-10-13 we took a real work from Wikimedia Commons, “Aoraki - Mt Cook, Aoraki - Mount Cook National Park, New Zealand” by Michal Klajban, whose Commons file page lists it under CC BY-SA 4.0, and typed its details into the live CC Attribution Generator. The title, author and license were taken from Commons’ own metadata for that file, not written by us.
The plain-text result:
"Aoraki - Mt Cook, Aoraki - Mount Cook National Park, New Zealand" by Michal Klajban (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aoraki_-_Mt_Cook,_Aoraki_-_Mount_Cook_National_Park,_New_Zealand.jpg) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).- All four TASL parts were present. The Markdown and HTML versions put the links on the title and the license name.
- With “Cropped to a square” entered as the change, the sentence ended with “Cropped to a square.”
- With the source left empty, the credit showed
([source URL])where the link belongs and the copy button read “Copy incomplete attribution”. An incomplete credit cannot look finished. - With the title left empty on a 4.0 license, it showed
"[title]"and the same warning, although Creative Commons says the title is optional for 4.0. The generator is stricter than the license here: if the work has no title, delete the placeholder.
What this cannot do
- It has no field for a copyright notice or a disclaimer notice. If the licensor supplied either, the legal text says to keep it, so add it by hand.
- It does not open the source page or check that the license you chose is the one the work really carries. You supply the facts.
- Credit is only one condition. A license such as CC BY-SA has others, which this generator does not cover; the CC License Compatibility Checker looks at how licenses combine.
- Some licensors ask for a specific credit wording. If they do, use theirs.
This is general information, not legal advice.
Write your own credit with the CC Attribution Generator: enter the details, pick plain text, Markdown or HTML, and paste the result next to the work.
Sources
Checked on 2026-10-13.
- Recommended practices for attribution, Creative Commons (page last edited 4 December 2024): TASL, and the title being optional for 4.0 but required up to 3.0.
- Legal Code, Attribution 4.0 International, Creative Commons: section 3(a), the attribution conditions.
- File page for the tested work, Wikimedia Commons: title, author and license of the example, read from Commons’ metadata interface.
Related: Can I use this font commercially? covers the same question for fonts.
Publishing a page that uses this? Run the full pre-publish check on the page itself: indexing signals, link preview, broken links, alt text, structured data and HTTPS in one pass.