Abstract

Social Networking sites have become a requirement to exist as socially acceptable beings. The need to be a part of the growing change and to feel being accepted as intuitively and technologically modern, people seems to have started adopting norms that were once immoral and criminal in nature. This research article focuses on disappearing Copyrights Laws in our developing digital age. Chiefly, TIKTOK application is under light for making people adopt to some new understandings of information sharing and respecting individual’s creativity contrary to longstanding rules. Social Cognitive Theory was used to examine the means by which this application might be aiding as a catalyst for deteriorating the importance of these laws.

Key Words

Social Networking Applications, TIKTOK, Copyright Infringement, Imitation Theory, Social    Cognitive Theory

Introduction

We have arisen to an era, where swift and persistent developments are been made to digitalize the world and make technology more accessible and user-friendly to people. Therefore, virtual developers devised User-Centered Design (UCD) in order to increase their reach. In other words, it’s a modern-age communication model where audience (users) achieves priority over all the means, messages or any communicators hence, becoming the epicenter of most communication cycles. The audience which was once considered passive receivers is now expeditiously gravitating to become active users by flowing information and content creation; surprisingly in larger numbers (Yu, 2019). Although, portable technologies like multitasking cell phones, tablets et cetera and user-friendly applications made drastic changes in routine lives of users yet, it is inertly challenging many conventional socioeconomic and ethical standings.

In last two decades, mobile application developers worked on integrating User-Generated Content (UGC), Professionally-Generated Content (PGC) and Occupationally-Generated Content (OGC) in single application to enhance outreach and monetary gains. (Yu, 2019) Evidently, the developers who were able to program such Social Networking Applications (SNAs) stepped into a cosmic realm of possibilities involving opportunities and risks both. TIKTOK, is one of such examples.

Now a days, a bulk share of SNAs users around the world perceive TIKTOK as a creativity locator and booster for general public by acting as a virtual playground for showcasing one’s talent. In addition, working as a catalyst in enhancing observational learning. The application seems to have laid a deal of impression over its users. An excessive amount of data is shared every minute of the day worldwide however, there also lies an undeniable likelihood that some of the content share over this application would be objectionable. Moreover, the notion of novelty is also questioned time to time by another portion of SNAs users due to the increasing violations of copyrights with this particular application. 

The increasing demand for user-friendly applications and commercial surge that comes along with it have steered certain UCD developer companies in risking certain underlying laws relating to moral and ethical models that uphold societal harmony and justice. Copyrights protection is amongst the preexisting laws which has been noticeably infringed as a routine on such SNAs. Which in turn has led users to undermine the severity of offenses explicitly related to the copyright laws. TIKTOK application is a viable sample of study asthe idea of breaching anyone’s primary copyright entitlements is more common in this application. Therefore, having the understanding of when and why were these rights provided is an utmost need of every seeker and reader.  

The invention and expansion of printing press along with the opportunity to reach masses also gave a penury side to intellectual property enabling the large scale productions. England’s “Statute of Anne 1709” is considered as the first act of copyrights that was formulated. (IPR Toolkit - Pakistan, 2016) New age Copyright Laws adhere to a range of preexisting legal privileges in conjunction with moral rights of the creator, economic rights for the distribution entities, rights of the holder of the its copy, regulation and censorship laws. It a legal structure where regardless of being documented (registered on a legal forum) or undocumented (not registered on legal forum) securities are provided to any tangible work of an author. Also, Failure in registration has no repercussions or capacity to weaken copyright privileges like inadequacy to sue the infringer however in court, such claims require prima facie proofs of authorship. (IPR Toolkit - Pakistan, 2016) The theft of moral or economic benefits by using someone else original work is prohibited for a century now. A number of countries takes copyright violations as a criminal offense with financial and social repercussions. (Rana, 2018)

When we talk about protecting originality in our current digital globalization, ideas and expressions are professed differently in the essence of Copyrights Laws defined in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Applicability of these laws set a rational ground and a wider scope in critically analyzing any violation and the degree of offense. Hence, the compartmentalization between generally occurring ideas and planned expressions into a tangible production. An idea is observed as a common cognitive ritual that cannot be privatized and retained by individuals. While expressions are creative representation of ideas. (Pang, 2006) Copyrights is one particular branch of IPR that legally provides any individual, the protection and control over their content and means; staring from reproduction, publication, exhibition, telecasting/airing, adaptation to any other treatment. This study overviews the rising trend of expressions being used without consent and a breach to legal and moral rights.   

The focus of this investigation is to seek a supposition about the waning of copyrights importance due to modern day digital SNAs. Hence, directing further studies into the consideration foramendments in fundamental copyright law clauses. Which will either adhere to public’slack of importance for copyright laws or more strict commandments to protect legal and moral rights of actual creators.   




Objectives of the Study

• To seek a relationship between TIKTOK usage and observational learnings of users 

• To seek a relationship between TIKTOK’s use and the decrease significance of copyrights laws in the minds of its users




Problem Statement

Copyrights have been a lingering debate since 1709, but the new-age of virtual expansion has opened a door to a new possibility. The chances are that the need for copyright laws might moderately or completely fades away with time. This assumption is made on the basis of increasing copyright infringements over virtual platforms and rising challenging nature of work for developers to manage tons of data coming in every hour with mounting number of new users. Copyrights is a branch of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) that legally provides any individual, the protection and control over their content and means; staring from reproduction, publication, exhibition, telecasting/airing, adaptation to any other treatment. However, according to many ingenious people copyright laws have been a protective layer for creative people and novelty of their work, but in recent times, these laws are facing difficulties to hold up their importance in digital world. The need for shielding expressions under copyright laws originated in the spirit of harmonizing societal interests and allowing the unrestricted stream of information as well as safeguarding the tangible property of any content maker. In addition, these rights reinforced supplementing free speech, development of sociocultural set up and eradicating injustice. (Karim, 2018)   

There are two certain considerations that this research paper would like to explore and possibly find any underlying relation between them. First is to figure out, whether this increase in copyright infringements over TIKTOK is directly related to observational learnings of users, and if yes, can it be an indication of decreasing significance of Copyright laws. This research will be conducted implying the understanding of social cognitive theory which profess the idea that our very humanness on large is shaped in range of forms by unswerving and direct observational experiences. (Bandura, 2001)In addition, how the idea of breaching anyone’s primary copyright entitlements is becoming common because of the application, TIKTOK.




TIKTOK - Historical Brief

Mobile Application Development Industry is generally perceived as comprising two segments; Life service and leisure with entertainment. (Liqian, 2018) Exceptions can include Social Networking Sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter et cetera taking Application Development Industry handy and introducing their mobile versions. Going little back in the history of application development, the beginning of 2010 decade saw a rise in UCD applications, which mainly emphasized on user’s requirements or attitude towards media usage. Therefore, developers stepped up the overall experience by using User Interface Design (UI) and Interactive Design (ID) to procure traffic and gratify the needs of its users. (Yu, 2019)

During the same period, videos with small timelines merely of 10 to 15 seconds entered the creative world as an arty adaptation. (Liqian, 2018)ByteDance was among one of the Chinese companies who embraced this idea and introduced an application called TIKTOK, back in 2016. Surprisingly, an application of similar fashion was making rounds already, but in a different time zone, America and Europe. Musical.ly, was also programmed by Chinese developers namedAlex Zhu and Luyu Yang.However, the arrival of TIKTOK and its amazing reception in China led to ByteDance taking over of Musical.ly in 2017. (Schwedel, 2018)

Being free-for-all application, TIKTOK is assessed to cater monthly 800 million active users. In 2019 alone, this SNA congregated 730 million downloads with 1.5 billion downloads in just a few years, finding its place in the ranking of most downloaded applications (7th rank). (Iqbal, 2020) Apple store ranks TIKTOK at third most popular application till date. (AppleStore, 2020) The longstanding and benign development of TIKTOK as an entertaining forum and compiler of user’s data landed its parent company to now have offices in Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo. (TIKTOK, n.d.)




Significance of the Study

This study is directed to seek the potential elements that may or may not be discouraging the need for Copyright Laws. Any user, frequent or accidental can see the users infringing IPR on TIKTOK. It’s increasing popularity, sharing of unregulated data in huge amounts, the diversity in SNA influencers and increasing copyright violations can account for a likelihood where Copyright Laws might be losing its significance in digital world. It’s imperative to place public’s attention on this instrumental domain of law principally associated with moral rights of digital content creators around the world. 




Inquiring Literature

Apparently, Copyright Laws have been an ambiguous set of regulations that public at large is unaware. In preceding decade, when Smartphone Industry was incorporating cellular communication with UCD applications; copyrights infringement even then was a major issue with illegal printing of books, duplication of film copies, low-costing recorded music CDs et cetera. 

In 2011, Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP) under the direction on International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) produced a detail report on assessment and predictions about socioeconomic effects of counterfeiting and piracy. The report estimated about 30 to 75 billion dollars being generated through digitally pirated products while they predicted these numbers to reach 80 to 240 billion dollars by 2015. (BASCAP, Estimating the global economic and social impacts of counterfeiting and piracy , 2011)International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) now predicts that privacy in digital arenas like Software Industry, Music Industry, and Motion Pictures will be spawning roughly 384 to 856 billion dollars by 2022. (BASCAP, ICC, 2016)

Henceforward, this quick upsurge in development and variety of SNAs has evidently increased the likelihood of copyright infringements and in turn, leading the world to a stage where copyrights might be perceived as an unnecessary obligation, an impractical battle to pursue for creative people, and damaging creativity especially for Professionally-Generated Content Creators (PGCC) and Occupationally-Generated Content Creators (OGCC). 

On the other hand, digitalization and reliance on portable technologies have intensified the desires for gathering diverse information subsequently giving a rise to the conception of users being communicators, also called as influencers; a special terminology coined for SNAs users. They can be partly divided into two categories, passive and active influencers. The one who just rely on sharing information of all sources depending on its interest (Passive) and the one who crafts an identity/screen presence to provide certain types of information depending on their interests (Active). In other words, anyone with an online presence is an influencer now. Though the capability of influence depends on one’s representation and followership.

TIKTOK is one of the SNAs which has found substantial popularity throughout the world recently. Primary reasons do actually involve a commendable integration of Big Data Mining and Artificial Intelligence algorithms to enhance user’s experience however, the seeming upturn of its popularity was the theme of micro narrative information sharing (10-15 second videos). Noticeably, ByteDance has been more attentive towards user needs and commercial aspects till now rather dispensing more attention on social value guidance for public good. (Yu, 2019)

TIKTOK released a transparency report for the first half of 2019 (January 1 – June 30, 2019) where it was stated that they received around 3345 Copyrighted Content Take-down Notices, and 85 percent were put down. (ByteDance, transparency-report, n.d.) This report might appears pretty impressive, but numbers don’t add up. A platform where 800 million active users from around the world upload a variety of content throughout the month, and still the company receives such a minimal number of copyright complains over the period of six months. 

This observation gets defensible on Financial Times news story of April 4 2020, where it’s revealed that a number of music companies worldwide are threatening to sue TIKTOK for copyright infringements. This news report included David Israelite’s statement of pressing charges on Byte Dancekeeping in view an estimation that more than 50 percent of music companies are unlicensed with TIKTOK. David Israelite is the CEO of National Music Publishers Association’s (NMPA) that represents music creators, publishers and lyric writers. From last one year, even the largest Music Company of the world, Universal Music have been trying to reach a common ground with ByteDance in licensing their music, but now the things seems to get worst. Different talks were held over the time in near past. Though, an internal source disclosed that the degree of deliberate violations by a multinational company was uncanny, hence our last option is lawsuit. (Nicolaou, 2020)

While TIKTOK has been giving the impression of being contributors of social change and legalities are adhered. Interestingly, there website seems to differ. Their webpage of legal information has a Note at the end which includes the following lines; 

 “….TIKTOK is not in a position to adjudicate disputes between third parties, and may not be able to remove the content or suspend the account you reported for infringement or violation. As an alternative, you may want to contact the person who posted the content or owns the account to try to resolve your issue directly.”(ByteDance, Legal, n.d.)

This situation can also be theorized in a view that the increasing need of people to see and show creativity more than ever before can play a big part in slackening the powers of established laws. Seemingly in coming times, we might be able to know more about the degree of copyrights retaining competence in the digital age via the outcomes of this TIKTOK and Music Industry affair. 

However, this study wants to seek a social cognitive aspect of increased copyright violations on TIKTOK and whether it indicates that there is a gradual fall in the significance of Copyright Laws. 

As SNAs are more popular in Generation Z and a good number ofMillennialaswell. It can be hypothesized that the understanding and conversely the importance of Copyright Laws would be minimum for a huge population. As Tom W. Bell in his book, Intellectual Privilege, argues that Copyright Laws are in violation of our natural and common laws, and “these technological and social developments tend to render copyright unnecessary, it will someday rank as simply an evil eye.” (Bell, 2014) Things that once become common, it takes a great deal to revert them as uncommon. 

The impasse between creators and SNAs especially TIKTOK, provides a clear understanding that the matter needs to be examined in order to find a common ground. Violations are being made and legal actions are being overlooked under the perception that there is an increasing demand by the people to take up any information or expression for sharing purposes; predominantly to be a part of rising interconnected and uncontrollable digital world. Therefore, there is an utmost need to assure that whether such a demand really exists in users, and are Copyright Laws really losing its importance with advancement and time.  

Theoretical Framework

Social Cognitive Theory

This Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) is the brainchild of three main theorists, Albert Bandura, Julian Rotter, and Walter Mischel who argued that better half of human learning occurs through observing social settings. For instance, necessary instructions, rules, aptitudes, approaches, attitudes, and principles that people tend to follow are learned mostly through observational method. Being directly connected to behaviorism, thus theory seeks to understand the psychosocial reasoning and degree of learning through observations. (Bandura, 2001) SNAs have become a vital tool to carry out observational process. Users are always a few clicks away from learning anything they want. 

The Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) suggests human beings as both creation and creators of our active society. According to this theory, the psycho-social process occurs with our neural capacity to decode, preserve and used coded information to acquire aptitudes that make us human. These neural engagements can be represented as symbolization, self-regulation, and self-reflection. The UCD of TIKTOK has enabled people to symbolize their feelings to vast spectrum of visual representation and viewership directly accompanying their societal setups. Perhaps, leading to a decrease in credibility gap. Whereas, self-regulation mechanism identifies the idea of possible social cognitive changes with prolonged continuous exposure, also expressed as non-static human behavior. Which rationalizes this understanding that the regard for the novelty of contents maybe diminishing with the increase frequency of TIKTOK use. Self-reflection model incorporates several verification practices of human brain however, its vicarious verification process states that people correct their own thinking by observing other people’s interaction with the environment and its consequences. (Bandura, 2001)

According to Bandura, the cognitive model has for mediational processes, Attention, Retention, Reproduction and Motivation. Attention describes the degree of exposure to a behavior while the imitation of the act relies on certain behavior’s quality to grab attention. Retention describes the retaining power of any behavior. Lack of remembrance leads to little or no imitation hence, a vivid memory of any behavior is a must to be performed later my viewer. Reproduction describes the act of imitating any behavior however, for this to happen, consistent exposure to the behavior and abridging the physical limitations will ease the process. Lastly, motivation describes the will to imitate the behavior. The observer assesses the rewards and punishments associated with the behavior. Positive reception of any behavior is vital for observers’ vicarious reinforcement.  

All four mediational processes can be structured to find out the aptitude of TIKTOK videos to influence imitation practice in its users. This theory can provide a deeper insight of how users think about content creation and sharing while adoring any relatable or popular TIKTOK users. 




Research Questions

1. Whether the desire to follow or imitate others has increased with TIKTOK use?

2. Whether the urge of sharing information surpasses the understanding of legalities of content sharing?

3. Whether the increase in copyright infringements on TIKTOK is a reflection of decreasing significance of Copyright Laws?




Hypothesis

The following construct seeks to find a link between observational learning of users, and losing significance of Copyright Lawsin today’s digital world.

H1: Long exposure, inspiration, andurge to imitateis negatively related to the importance of Copyright Laws

Research Methodology

This chapter will enlighten readers with the process adopted for conducting this research. It includes

• Research Population and Sample

• Research Instrument

• Data Collection

• Data Analysis




Research Population and Sample

The targeted population for this research wasall genders inclusive. Their ages were above 15 and it was a must for them to be using TIKTOK at least for a month. The research area was limited to Lahore, Pakistan therefore, definite population is unidentified. A sample of hundred (100) respondents comprising 65 Males and 35 Females wererandomly selected. They were eligible enough to respond to the questions with their own understanding and also willingly to be a part of this study.  




Research Instrument 

Questionnaire was chosen as a research instrument for this study in order to develop a link between observational learning through TIKTOK and fading Copyright Laws. It was compartmentalized into three sections including demographic information, exposure timeframe, imitation, and inspiration of users to choose materials for producing videos on TIKTOK. 

The first section had two close ended questions including gender andage. The second section was related to TIKTOK usage timeframe and observational learning leading to imitation. It contained six questions in totaladopting a 5 pointsLikert scalewith strongly agree (5), agree (4), neutral (3), disagree (2) and strongly disagree (1) respectively. The third and last section had four more questions about inspiration of users to select materials for creating videos. Thissection had two close ended questions and one 5 points Likert scale question. Total questions were 12 in number.




Data Collection

The questionnaire was formulated over online platform called Google forms enabling the researcher to accumulate data with simple random sampling technique. This provided impartial opportunity to receive diverse and minimized prejudiced responses. The questionnaires were dispersed by a link to the TIKTOK users in Lahore across several social media platforms. 

Data Analysis

The collected data was later analyzed via descriptive statistics involving graphs and pie-charts to depict and explain behavioral ratios of targeted population regarding TIKTOK use and observational learning through TIKTOK which later provided an understanding of whether this has led to Copyright Laws losing their significance or not.




Chapter 4

Results and Analysis

This chapter breaks down diverse data collected for this study into understandable information via descriptive statistics. Bars and Pie charts were designed to make more sense of the data in a logical and concise manner whereas the interpretation was transcribed in text for the reader. 

Percentages were used to compare and analyze relationship between variables explicit to this research article. Different questions were used to assist finding information for the variables in our hypothesis. The sample that researcher collected enclose data from 65 males and 35 females for this study.

The charts are given on the left and its interpretation is provided at the right side. It will help with your understanding if you read the text before examining the charts.

The question associated with collecting ages of the respondents had four different age groups in it. The highest number of respondents 52 were in 15 to 25 year’s old category. Also, identifiable as millennial age group. 26-25 year’s old category had 23 respondents while 36-45 and 46-55 year’s old category had 13 and 10 respondents respectively.  
Respondents were asked to provide a timeframe for using TIKTOK application on daily basis. The results showed that 35 percent respondents use TIKTOK for at least one hour. 25 percent recalled about using it for one to two hours daily while 19 percent of respondents even uses the application for more than two hours daily. Only 21 percent were using it for less than half an hour.
relate Bandura’s mediational process of Retention, respondents were asked about the attention grabbing ability of TIKTOK videos which involuntarily stimulus retention. 23 percent said that they strongly agree that most TIKTOK videos grabs their attention while 36 percent agreed to this statement as well. 22 percent people remained neutral while 11 percent and 9 percent disagreed and strongly disagreed with this notion respectively.  
In order to cater Bandura’s mediational process of Attention, respondents were asked to review the impressing element of TIKTOK videos. 25 percent strongly believed that the TIKTOK videos are impressive while 36 also agreed to this impression as well. 21 percent people remained neutral while 8 and 6 percent disagreed and strongly disagreed with this notion respectively.  
To seek Bandura’s mediational process of Motivation, respondents were asked whether they find others being appreciated for their TIKTOK videos or not. This leads to involuntarily stimulus imitating the behavior. 34 percent strongly agreed while 48 percent agreed to this opinion. 12 percent remained neutral while 5 percent disagreed and 01 percent strongly disagreed with this notion respectively.  
To seek Bandura’s mediational process of Reproduction, respondents were asked whether TIKTOK videos inspire them to make videos of their own, and 20 percent strongly agreed while 27 percent agreed to this statement. 26 percent remained neutral while 12 percent disagreed and 15 percent strongly disagreed with this notion respectively.  
Yet again to relate Bandura’s mediational process of Motivation, respondents were asked whether appreciation of others aid them to make TIKTOK videos or not; which might lead to an involuntarily stimulus of imitating the behavior. 14 percent strongly agreed while 32 percent agreed to this assessment. 19 percent remained neutral while 21 percent disagreed and 14 percent strongly disagreed with this notion respectively.  
To see the rewards and punishments perspective of Bandura’s mediational process of motivation, respondents were asked whether they have seen accounts being banned for copyrights violations or not. The results showed that only 02 percent strongly agreed and 06 percent agreed that they have seen accounts being blocked while 22 percent remained neutral. Majority respondents either disagreed (22 percent) or strongly disagreed (48 percent) that they have seen accounts being blocked.
Most violations of Copyright Laws occur due to music that is being used on TIKTOK hence, respondents were asked about where they find the music for their videos. 31 percent responded TIKTOK, 45 percent said YouTube while 8 percent and 12 percent responded SoundCloud and other musical sites respectively.
Downloading songs without permission is a crime in Copyright Laws hence, it was important to see whether the respondents really know or understand these or not. Therefore, three options were given.  78 percent said they directly download it from social networking sites, which in itself is a misconduct because most of the music on themis copyrights protected and there is hardly any download option. While 20 percent said they download music from royalty free sites and only 02 percent agreed of downloading music after paying a certain amount.
Finally, the respondents were directly asked that whether they cross-check the music they use to make TIKTOK videos for royalty free privileges or not. Surprisingly, 27 percent strongly disagreed and 48 percent disagreed that they do no such thing. 19 percent remained neutral while only 04 percent agreed and 02 percent strongly agreed for cross-checking royalty free privileges before using any music.
The results have shown some deeper insight to find a link, compare and evaluate different variables associated with the hypothesis of this study. The next chapter will shed brieflight on the findings of this research article through discussion. 

Discussion

The interest behind such a study was to see whether the public have started to overlook set laws that protect expressions and monetary welfare of creators. Most importantly, whether TIKTOK is naively playing a role in fashioning users behavior of disregarding underlying laws, primarily Copyrights. The motives behind this study principally focused on observational learning as a theory which can possibly have anegative effect on fundamental understandings of legal repercussions. Which in turn, will slowly wipe away the need for protecting artistic expressions under intellectual property rights. 

The results summarizing showed that TIKTOK is much more accustomed with millennial age group of 15 to 25 years old (with 52 respondents out of 100). While, 26-35 years old group had 23 respondents. 36-45 years old group had 13 respondents. Surprisingly, 46-55 years old group had 10 respondents as well. The timeframe of daily use of TIKTOK was establish with 56 percent users operating application for one hour or less. While 25 percent using it for less than two hours and 19 percent even using TIKTOK for more than two hours daily. Analyzing these two clusters of information, millennial age group was spending more time on this application.

Secondly, to operationalize Bandura’s four mediational processes,some particular questions were asked. 59 percent respondents stated that they find most videos impressive on TIKTOK. It can be assumed that more time will be spent on TIKTOK as its elements have the ability to impress people. Along with 61 percent respondents saying that they find TIKTOK videos as attention grabbing also.Hence, the component of more exposure and contents ability to grab attention is justified. Furthermore, respondents were asked whether their inspiration to make videos of their own comes from TIKTOK videos or not. 47 percent agreed that they find encouragement from the use of this application. This makes nearly half of the sample finding inspiration from TIKTOK to imitate a behavior. Likewise, respondents were assessed upon their motivation to actually imitate a behavior. 82 percent respondents found other users being appreciated for their videos while 46 percent agreed that seeing others being appreciated for their videos certainly aids them to make a video of their own. To validate rewards and punishments aspect of motivation, respondents were asked whether they have seen accounts been banned due to copyright violations. Shockingly, only 08 percent respondents said they have seen an account being banned due to copyrights violation. All four mediational processes of Bandura were established that can lead to imitation of a behavior. 

Moving forward, respondents were asked about where they find the music for their videos, how they download them and whether they make sure its copyrights free. 31 percent respondents find music for their videos from TIKTOK while 45 percent discovers it from YouTube. TIKTOK allows any kind of music to be used for the videos so, there is no way to find whether those videos are violating copyrights laws or not. Encouragement to use the same music regardless of understanding legalities of its use can be a concerning situation. It was a discouraging thing to find out that 78 percent respondents download their music directly from social networking sites to use them in their videos. Till date, it is factually criminal in nature and punishable up to three years in prison. (IPR Toolkit - Pakistan, 2016)Finally, it was a clear indication of disappearing importance of copyrights when 75 percent respondents stated they do not cross-check their choice of music before making a video for copyrights free privileges (permissions of copying, downloading or sharing)

This study can be concluded as a preliminary step to understand the changing opinions of people with respect to constantly growing digital age. The hypothesis of this research was directed towards a particular dimension of social cognitive learning that might lead to ethical changes about some preexisting norms, such as IPR- Copyrights. Specifically for TIKTOK application, the hypothesis, ‘Long exposure, inspiration, andurge to imitate is negatively related to the importance of Copyright Laws‘stands TRUE under the analysis of the data. Long exposures due to attention grabbing content, inspiration due to lesser physical limitations and credibility gap, and vicarious reinforcement due to positive receptions; people tend to disregard Copyright Laws intentionally or unintentionally.

For the future studies associated with this sort of investigation, needs to know the limitations this research article possesses. The sample size was not reasonable enough to generalize these observations to a population however, it does provide a robust to the assumption that Copyright Laws are disappearing in this digital age. 

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