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Proper licensing is essential for legally sharing educational content. Kolibri Studio supports multiple license types and enforces attribution requirements to ensure content is distributed according to copyright law.

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Supported licenses

The licenses are defined in le_utils.constants.licenses and stored in the database via the License model (models.py:1779): 
class License(models.Model):
    license_name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    license_url = models.URLField(blank=True)
    license_description = models.TextField(blank=True)
    copyright_holder_required = models.BooleanField(default=True)
    is_custom = models.BooleanField(default=False)
    exists = models.BooleanField(default=False)

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License list

From Licenses.js, the following licenses are supported:

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Creative Commons licenses

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CC BY

{
  "id": 1,
  "license_name": "CC BY",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "copyright_holder_required": true
}
Attribution Required
  • ✅ Commercial use allowed
  • ✅ Derivatives allowed
  • ✅ Adaptations may use different license
  • ✅ Must credit original author
Use when: Content can be freely used, modified, and shared with attribution.

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CC BY-SA

{
  "id": 2,
  "license_name": "CC BY-SA",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
  "copyright_holder_required": true
}
Attribution-ShareAlike
  • ✅ Commercial use allowed
  • ✅ Derivatives allowed
  • ⚠️ Derivatives must use same license
  • ✅ Must credit original author
Use when: Content can be modified but derivatives must maintain the same license (copyleft).

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CC BY-ND

{
  "id": 3,
  "license_name": "CC BY-ND",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/",
  "copyright_holder_required": true
}
Attribution-NoDerivatives
  • ✅ Commercial use allowed
  • ❌ No derivatives allowed
  • ✅ Must credit original author
Use when: Content can be shared but not modified.

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CC BY-NC

{
  "id": 4,
  "license_name": "CC BY-NC",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/",
  "copyright_holder_required": true
}
Attribution-NonCommercial
  • ❌ No commercial use
  • ✅ Derivatives allowed
  • ✅ Adaptations may use different license
  • ✅ Must credit original author
Use when: Content is free for educational use but not commercial purposes.

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CC BY-NC-SA

{
  "id": 5,
  "license_name": "CC BY-NC-SA",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/",
  "copyright_holder_required": true
}
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
  • ❌ No commercial use
  • ✅ Derivatives allowed
  • ⚠️ Derivatives must use same license
  • ✅ Must credit original author
Use when: Non-commercial educational content that requires derivative works to maintain the same license.

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CC BY-NC-ND

{
  "id": 6,
  "license_name": "CC BY-NC-ND",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/",
  "copyright_holder_required": true
}
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
  • ❌ No commercial use
  • ❌ No derivatives allowed
  • ✅ Must credit original author
Use when: Content can only be shared as-is for non-commercial purposes.

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Other licenses

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Public Domain

{
  "id": 8,
  "license_name": "Public Domain",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "copyright_holder_required": false
}
  • ✅ No restrictions
  • ✅ No attribution required
  • ✅ Commercial use allowed
  • ✅ Derivatives allowed
Use when: Content has no copyright restrictions (very old works, government content, or explicitly released).
Only use Public Domain for content that is definitively in the public domain. Don’t use this as a default.

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All Rights Reserved

{
  "id": 7,
  "license_name": "All Rights Reserved",
  "license_url": "http://www.allrights-reserved.com/",
  "copyright_holder_required": true
}
  • ❌ No redistribution without permission
  • ❌ No derivatives
  • ❌ No commercial use
Use when: You have explicit permission to use copyrighted content but it cannot be freely redistributed.
All Rights Reserved content can be in your private channels but should be used carefully in public channels.

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Special Permissions

{
  "id": 9,
  "license_name": "Special Permissions",
  "copyright_holder_required": true,
  "is_custom": true,
  "exists": false
}
Used for content with custom licensing agreements.

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License on content nodes

Licenses are assigned to individual content nodes: 
class ContentNode(MPTTModel, models.Model):
    license = models.ForeignKey(
        "License", 
        null=True, 
        blank=True, 
        on_delete=models.SET_NULL
    )
    license_description = models.CharField(
        max_length=400, 
        null=True, 
        blank=True
    )
    copyright_holder = models.CharField(
        max_length=200,
        null=True,
        help_text="Organization or person who holds the essential rights"
    )

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Attribution requirements

Most licenses require attribution. The copyright_holder_required field enforces this: 
license.copyright_holder_required  # True for most licenses
When this is True, you must provide:
  1. Copyright holder - The person or organization that created the content
  2. Author (optional) - The creator of the content
  3. Provider (optional) - Who distributed the content
  4. Aggregator (optional) - Who collected the content
These fields are stored on the content node: 
author = models.CharField(max_length=200, blank=True)
aggregator = models.CharField(max_length=200, blank=True)
provider = models.CharField(max_length=200, blank=True)

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License inheritance

Channels have default license settings in content_defaults: 
DEFAULT_CONTENT_DEFAULTS = {
    "license": None,
    "author": None,
    "aggregator": None,
    "provider": None,
    "copyright_holder": None,
    "license_description": None,
    # ...
}
These defaults are applied to new content nodes, but each node can override them.

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License validation

The License model includes validation (models.py:1796): 
@classmethod
def validate_name(cls, name):
    if cls.objects.filter(license_name=name).count() == 0:
        raise ValidationError("License `{}` does not exist".format(name))

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Channel version license tracking

When a channel is published, license information is aggregated in ChannelVersion: 
class ChannelVersion(models.Model):
    included_licenses = ArrayField(
        models.IntegerField(choices=get_license_choices()),
        null=True,
        blank=True,
    )
    non_distributable_licenses_included = ArrayField(
        models.IntegerField(choices=get_license_choices()),
        null=True,
        blank=True,
    )
This allows users to see what licenses are present in a channel before importing it.

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Choosing a license

1

Determine your rights

Do you own the copyright to this content? Do you have permission to share it?
2

Consider your goals

  • Do you want others to be able to modify your content?
  • Should commercial use be allowed?
  • Do derivatives need to use the same license?
3

Select the appropriate license

Use the most permissive license that aligns with your goals. CC BY or CC BY-SA are common for open educational resources.
4

Provide attribution

Fill in the copyright holder and other attribution fields as required by the license.

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License decision tree

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Best practices

Use CC BY or CC BY-SA to maximize reusability and remix potential.
Use CC BY-NC-SA if you want to prevent commercial use while allowing educational adaptations.
Choose a more restrictive license initially. You can always relax restrictions later, but you cannot add restrictions to content already shared.
If combining content with different licenses, use the most restrictive compatible license. For example, combining CC BY and CC BY-SA requires using CC BY-SA for the result.
License compatibility mattersWhen remixing content:
  • CC BY-SA content requires derivatives to also be CC BY-SA
  • NC (NonCommercial) licenses cannot be mixed with commercial licenses
  • ND (NoDerivatives) content cannot be modified at all

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External resources

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Next steps

Creating channels

Learn how to set default licenses for your channel

Content types

Understand the different types of content you can license

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