The copyright trends in India, and the level of copyright awareness among academic Librarians

Academic librarians often need to deal with copyright issues at their institutions while handling information resources, and they must have a clear understanding of copyright laws, practices, and its implications. This paper examines the copyright trends in India, and librarian’s familiarity with copyright laws and sources consulted to acquire copyright education. Copyright registrations in India are constantly increasing and copyright infringement cases are gradually decreasing. The study has shown impressive results that the majority of academic librarians (90.70%) are aware of copyright laws and their practice. Further, the study illustrates that the majority of librarians (63.27%) have only a basic level of copyright knowledge, and a marginal number of librarians working at medical college libraries (18.18%), university libraries (14.29%), and engineering college libraries (4.65%) have better knowledge of copyright laws. The results of the study suggest the advanced level copyright education at the library schools and continuous opportunities in the form of conferences, workshops, and seminars, etc. It has become compelling at workplaces that better-equipped librarians in terms of deeper knowledge on copyright-related issues in the digital environment are to be appointed