How much do you know about copyright? Copyright means the legal right to be the only producer or seller of a book, play, film, or record for a specific length of time. Many people are not interested in copyright so they often infringe upon it. To know about copyright is important. Therefore, we conducted a survey of 300 students to figure out their knowledge of copyrights.

First of all, we give them 5 true-false questions about copyright. Question number one is: The copyright disappears if the author dies. The answer is ‘False’. 91% of students gave the right answer. Copyright is available for 70 years after the author dies. Question number two is: It is an infringement of copyright if we uploaded music which we downloaded from online music websites legally on our blog. The answer is ‘True’ and 72% students correctly answered. Question number three is: It is an infringement of copyright if a hospital shows a movie for free for patients in a hall. The answer is ‘True’. Only 37% students gave the right answer. Question number four is: It is not an infringement of copyright if someone shows highlights of a movie which is edited. The answer is ‘False’. More than half of students gave the wrong answer. Through these questions we recognize that students don’t know well enough about copyright. Remember, you cannot use others’ works for a commercial purpose which you buy for a personal purpose and you should be permitted before you use others’ works.

Next, we asked ‘What do you think is the main reason that people infringe copyright?’ They don’t know that they infringe copyright.’(54%) and ‘They think it is waste of money.’(46%) account for similar percentages.

Most students feel the need to protect copyright so we asked them ‘What do we have to do to protect copyright?’ 34% of students said it is important to promote copyright information (30%). And then, education about it (30%), toughen penalties for pirates (22%) and strengthen the crackdown on illegal downloading sites (14%) are followed.

CWNU has a lecture named ‘Easy to know copyright’. We encounter many copyright problems in college life (writing theses, reports and in class). We can learn how to handle these problems. If you are interested in copyright, how about attending this lecture? We hope CWNU students will be mature cultured people who respect works which individuals expend time and efforts to make.

Jo Yu-Na  -

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