Electronic Library, The

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the modes of digital content creation for digital libraries and discuss the associated copyright issues with the types of digital content.

Design/methodology/approach – Prevalent copyright laws in India in the context of digital content have been studied and issues related to specific types of digital content have been discussed.

Findings – In addition to two known types of digital content, namely born digital and turned digital, a third type, gained digital has been delineated. It is found that extant copyright laws, particularly in India, allow scope for forming opinions with regard to digital content thereby giving room for insecurity for digital content creators.

Research limitations/implications – Copyright laws in the context of World Intellectual Property Organization and India only have been discussed.

Practical implications – The paper will be useful to digital content creators and digital library managers/administrators to understand copyright issues relevant to the digital library.

Originality/value – The classification of digital libraries based on content as has been delineated in this paper is an original work and has reported for the first time. The linking of digital content with the copyright issues makes it useful.