Oshani Seneviratne, Andrés Monroy-Hernandez

Abstract

In this paper we examine how remixing or content reuse is supported in a wide range of user-generated content websites. In particular, we analyzed the ways in which microblogging, social network, video, photo, music and scientific data sharing websites support some the following forms of content reuse: (a) Licensed content brought in from external sources. (b) Content uploaded to the website and given a license of the user's liking. (c) Licensed content from the website reused elsewhere. (d) Licensed content reused within the website. We found that the majority of the websites we analyzed had insufficient support for these different types of content reuse scenarios, acting merely as content distribution portals rather than platforms that support a culture of remixing. Some of the websites were found to have support for different licenses but most websites lack adequate functionality for finding licensed content, remixing and attributing sources for remixes.