Turkey
Copyright 2017
Published: 30/09/2016
Chapter content – Free access
1.1 What are the requirements for copyright to subsist in a work?
Under Turkish law, specifically Law No. 5846 on “Intellectual and Artistic Works” (“Law No. 5846”), any kind of intellectual and artistic product bearing the specialty of its author or deemed to be a scientific and literary, music, artistic or cinematographic work is defined as a “work”.
The right to copy any work’s original or copies thereof by virtue of any form or method, completely or partially, directly or indirectly, temporarily or permanently is exclusively vested in the “author” of the work. Therefore, the copyright can subsist in any of the aforementioned categories of work.
Reproduction of the work’s original, or a recording of the work on any kind of device that enables the transmission and repetition of signs, voices and images which are already known or will be developed in the future, any kind of voice and music recordings, along with the implementation of plans, projects and guidelines in relation to architectural works, are also considered as copying. The same rule applies for reliefs and perforated moulds.
To the extent that a computer program requires a temporary copying, the copyright also covers acts of downloading, displaying, running, transmission and storage of the program.
Please note that the copyright counts as an “economic right” that enables the author of the work to benefit from the work economically. In addition to copyright, the economic rights are the right of adaptation, the right of distribution, the right of performance and the right to publicly communicate the work by the devices enabling the transmission of signs, sounds and/or images.
1.2 On the presumption that copyright can arise in literary, artistic and musical works, are there any other works in which copyright can subsist and are there any works which are excluded from copyright protection?
Except for those mentioned under question 1.1 above, there is no special category stipulated by Law No. 5846 in which the copyright can subsist. However, the main four categories (scientific, literary, music and artistic or cinematographic works) have sub-categories, which can also be subject to copyright. Although the main four categories of works are “numerus clausus”, any intellectual and artistic work that would be deemed to fall under any of such categories would be considered as a “work” by way of interpretation.
There are no works which are expressly excluded from the copyright protection.
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