  In this paper we describe the ways participants of the Scratch online
community, primarily young people, engage in remixing of each others' shared
animations, games, and interactive projects. In particular, we try to answer
the following questions: How do users respond to remixing in a social media
environment where remixing is explicitly permitted? What qualities of
originators and their projects correspond to a higher likelihood of plagiarism
accusations? Is there a connection between plagiarism complaints and
similarities between a remix and the work it is based on? Our findings indicate
that users have a very wide range of reactions to remixing and that as many
users react positively as accuse remixers of plagiarism. We test several
hypotheses that might explain the high number of plagiarism accusations related
to original project complexity, cumulative remixing, originators' integration
into remixing practice, and remixee-remixer project similarity, and find
support for the first and last explanations.
