THE EFFECT OF PHOTOCOPYING SERVICES ON COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT:A CASE STUDY OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF DELTA STATE UNIVERSITY,ABRAKA,NIGERIA

Abstract

This study examined the effect of photocopying services on copyright infringement:A case study of Library and Information Science uindergraduate students of Delta State University, Abraka, Nigeria. The objectives of the study were to determine the extent of photocopying activities among students in Delta state university Abraka, find out how knowledgeable are the students of copyright laws infringement and investigate the information resources are prone to photocopying by the students. The research adopted the descriptive survey design and questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. A population of 544students from 100-400 level students of the LIS Department, Delta State University, Abraka in the 2018/2019 Session were used for the study. From this,141 (400 level) students were sampled. The data were analyzed using descriptive (frequencies). Findings revealed that majority of the respondents made thousands of copies of published work in a session without taking cognizance of the copyright law placed on the materials. Also, the students had knowledge of copyright law infringement through photocopying services. They were aware that stealing materials from another source and passingit off as one's own, copying a whole paper from a source text without proper acknowledgement, submitting a paper written by someone else and passing it off as one's own, supplying proper documentation but leaving out quotation mark and copying sections of material from one or more source texts are infringements on copyright law. Yet another finding revealed that almost all of the students wwere indulged in the act of copyright infringement through photocopying of research materials such as lecture notes, handouts and textbooks. In conclusion, photocopying services had become an indispensable tool in the generation and dissemination of information in different organisations and institutions of learning. However, librarians need to be pro-active and educate the users more on copyright law in other to monitor the limits to photocopying activities within the library. it is  therefore recommended that libraries  should derive a better means of effecting copyright law in the tertiary institutions and make laws to limit the number of copies of photocopied materials in the libraries.