ShareAlike (SA)

Audiodrome | Last Updated: March 16th, 2026 | 4 min read | Glossary

ShareAlike (SA) is a Creative Commons license condition that lets people remix, transform, and build on a work, but requires them to release the adapted version under the same license terms or an officially compatible one. In plain language, if you change an SA-licensed work and share the result, you must “pass forward” the same openness.

Quick facts:
Also called: SA
Found in: CC BY-SA and CC BY-NC-SA
Applies to: adapted material you share, not every kind of reuse
Not the same as: attribution alone, public domain, or a free-for-any-terms commercial license.

Example:
You take a CC BY-SA photo, crop it, recolor it, and add graphic elements for a blog post. You can publish your version, including commercially, but if you share that adapted image, your contribution must also be released under CC BY-SA or a Creative Commons-approved compatible license.

Gotchas (3–4 bullets):

  • ShareAlike applies to adaptations. Creative Commons says merely including an SA work alongside unrelated material does not automatically create adapted material.
  • “Same terms” does not mean any similar open license. Creative Commons says compatible licenses are limited to those it has officially named as compatible.
  • You cannot add extra legal or technical restrictions. CC BY-SA 4.0 says you may not apply legal terms or technological measures that restrict what the license allows.
  • ShareAlike only kicks in when you share the adapted work. Creative Commons says private internal adaptations do not have to be relicensed under SA unless they are distributed to others.

FAQs

Not in the same way. ShareAlike is aimed at adapted material. Unchanged sharing still requires compliance with the license, but SA’s relicensing rule is specifically about shared adaptations.

Sometimes yes. CC BY-SA allows commercial use as long as you follow attribution, ShareAlike, and no-additional-restrictions rules. But CC BY-NC-SA does not allow commercial use under the same broad terms because it also includes the NonCommercial condition.

If you fail to apply the correct license when creating an adaptation, your rights under the license automatically end. However, under Creative Commons 4.0 licenses, you usually have 30 days to fix the mistake after receiving notice.

No, it only applies to adaptations. If you simply collect different works together without changing them, you do not have to apply the ShareAlike license to the entire collection. Only modified or remixed versions trigger the ShareAlike rule.

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Related terms:
Creative Commons (CC) • CC BY-SA License • Attribution • Derivative Work • Adapted Material • Open License • Public Domain