What is attribution?
Within the context of the Creative Commons, attribution is one of the components used by the six creative commons licenses. With attribution, the author is allowing others to use, copy, display and perform the copyrighted work (or derivative works), for commercial or non-commercial purposes, as long as they provide some credit to the author (and the author will typically explain exactly what form this credit should take).
A creative commons license with attribution requirements can be indicated by the use of the attribution graphic.