Abstract:

Introduction:
The diversity of platforms through which media content is disseminated and the digitalisation are changing the media culture of society. The future is oriented towards transcultural thinking, a positive educational environment and effective career development and that requires new skills. In the context of interaction between education, economy, innovations, and of particular importance for their successful implementation, is the copyright literacy.
Presentation: Copyright literacy as part of media literacy is extremely important on the agenda of the information society, especially now that it plays a key role in our lives, when the world faces a monstrous challenge of mutating viruses lurking everywhere. As a result, it is crucial to acquire more knowledge, form a good understanding of the mechanisms of creating creative content in the media, new opportunities for authors, the cultural dimension of media content and its diversity as objects of intellectual property.

Hypotheses:
Generation Z perceive the world through media. They understand the world in their own way. And they interpret it according to their knowledge, intellect, education. The right to intellectual property rewards the artist for their mind, with which they contribute to the development of mankind. Due to the expansion of Internet technologies in the 21st century, copyright literacy in the media is becoming a key element in the education of students in a university environment, and knowledge of the use of intellectual property in creating and recreating works of literature, science, art, digital architecture era is becoming a strategic competence for future generations of citizens.

The aim of this paper is to present the results of a national survey as part of a research project for young scientists at the Ministry of Education and Science in Bulgaria. It makes a study related to the formation of copyright literacy of students training in the professional field “Social Communications and Information Sciences” at ULSIT and students training in similar specialties in other universitites.

Methodology:
A survey instrument was developed by the authors in order to collect data from students who study in professional field “Public Communications and Information Science”, regarding their knowledge, awareness levels and attitude of copyright literacy issues. Because of the national scope, during the development of the questionnaire, national legislation and WIPO guidelines were primarily used. The survey was conducted in May 2021, among 455 students from eight universities among students in specialties such as journalism, communications, arts, copyright law in the new media. The questionnaire consists of 24 main questions and includes mainly closed (some based on 5-point Likert Scale) and few open questions.

Conclusion:
The obtained results establish and confirm the tendency that copyright in particular and intellectual property in general are not sufficiently represented in the curricula of higher education. Respondents are convinced of the need to encourage the creation of intellectual property and the maintenance of its value. Intellectual property rights with a focus on copyright in the media are little represented in higher education. This imposes a new model of training to increase copyright literacy in media, because in today's technological society, intangible property rights are becoming increasingly important.

Keywords:

Copyright, Journalism, Digital Media, Intellectual Property, Law, Media Industry.