Investigation of faculty of education students' awareness levels about copyright issues in relation to digital products

The aim of this study is to examine students' awareness level of copyright issues in relation to digital products. In addition, the divergence between the various demographic characteristics of students, such as socioeconomic characteristics, ICT access, literacy levels and awareness about copyright issues in relation to digital products was investigated. The study group of this research, which is a descriptive study, consisted of 902 students attending in education faculties of different universities in Turkey. Findings showed that the vast majority of education faculty students have insufficient knowledge of copyright concepts and software types. Education faculty students' behaviors about copyright differ with gender, class level, daily Internet usage time, computer usage level and Internet usage level. Students in the CEIT department exhibit more copyright infringement behaviors with digital products. As with the level of computer usage, users who have Internet usage ability at "advanced" level also show more copyright infringement behaviors. Those who think that they will be caught when they downloaded content in violation of copyright are found to be in less copyright infringement behaviors. In this study, it is emphasized that educators, students and their families should be informed about computer ethics and Internet ethics and IT related legal issues. In addition, well-structured training programs are at the forefront in reducing the most of the problems that arise. It is also suggested that increasing the users' awareness level about open source software might help the prevention of copyright infringement.