objective of this article is to present the Creative Commons licenses within the intellectual property system as an alternative to copyright and show how they can be used as a knowledge dissemination tool. The methodology is qualitative at the relational and explanatory levels.A documentary review was made on four categories: copyright, Creative Commons licenses, open access and scientific research in Colombian higher education. It was found that this type of licenses are not the most used, however, with the opportunity of open access forpublication in scientific journals, there is a tendency to greater dissemination; the open access efforts function as openness of knowledge towards the world but not the other way around. It is concluded that research in Colombia depends on accessible knowledge, which only reaches ten percent of theglobal knowledge Efforts must be made for access to bases and resources of a proprietary nature, which require investment and government policies.