Intellectual property challenges in the crowdsourced software engineering: An analysis of crowdsourcing platforms

Abstract

In the recent years, Crowdsourced Software Engineering (CSE) has achieved a prominent position in the open collaborative environment. Requesters, participants, and online platforms are the main components of CSE. The paper aims to reviews 51 CSE platforms identified from 22 relevant articles in the literature. However 11 platforms are no longer accessible and 4 platforms are linked to the same website. Also, this paper analyzes the legal documents of 40 platforms and Intellectual Property (IP) challenges faced by the platforms’ requesters and participants. The findings show majority platforms (59%) acquired IP ownerships of contents submitted by participants while 19% platforms do not provide clear IP ownership statement. Also there is no guideline to manage IP ownership rights and protection of platforms that supports CSE practices. This paper is important to provide an overview to crowdsourcing users in choosing crowdsourcing platforms and lays a good starting point for future academic research.