Which licences carry an attribution requirement
| Licence | Attribution | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| CC BY 4.0 | REQUIRED | Creator, licence name + link, changes indicated |
| CC0 | Not required | Courtesy credit welcome; no legal obligation |
| SIL OFL 1.1 (fonts) | Not required in credits | But the licence text travels with the font, and Reserved Font Name rules apply if you modify it |
| Marketplace standard licences | Usually not | Fab/Unity standard grants typically do not require credit - check the specific listing |
| Stock/audio libraries | Sometimes | Some tiers require credit; some sell credit-free tiers at a higher price |
The correct CC BY credit
The classic failure is crediting the creator but not the licence. A CC BY 4.0 credit should carry T-A-S-L: Title (if given), Author, Source (link), Licence (name + link), plus an indication if you modified the work. A solid form:
"Fishing trawler" by Jane Doe, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). Modified: re-textured.
Put it wherever credits reasonably live for your medium - the credits screen for a game, the description or end card for video. What does not work: nothing, or a bare name with no licence.
OFL fonts: the quiet one
The SIL Open Font License permits bundling and commercial use without a credits-screen requirement, but two obligations survive: the licence text accompanies the font when the font itself is redistributed, and if you modify the font, the Reserved Font Name rules mean your modified version cannot keep the original name. Embedding in a game or app is generally the easy case.
Never losing a credit line again
- Record the credit at acquisition time - the moment you download a CC BY model, write the finished credit line, not a reminder to write one.
- Keep credits with the asset record, not in a doc nobody owns.
- Generate the credits block, don't hand-assemble it the week of ship.
In Asset Licence Register, attribution is a field on the asset: an amber flag fires while the credit line is empty on any asset that needs one, and the Credits block button concatenates every recorded line into one copy-paste block for your credits screen.