Semantic representation for copyright metadata of user-generated content in folksonomies

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate some general features of folksonomies and user-generated content with copyright issues, and to present semantic representation for folksonomies using a tag ontology that can be used to represent tagging data at a semantic level using Semantic Web technologies. Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory study is described that features current social tagging methods and copyright metadata. In particular, a tag ontology is extended for representing copyright metadata across different platforms. Findings – The main finding is that Social Semantic Cloud of Tags can improve the expressive knowledge representation of folksonomies and that this ontology can aid in describing copyright metadata using some extended properties. Originality/value – The paper gives a valuable insight into representing folksonomies with Semantic Web technologies that enable the representation, exchange, and reuse of tagging data, and provides a way to reduce the risk of copyright infringements in the process of tag sharing in folksonomies.