What is a digital copyright? In which ways are such rights infringed?
Copyrighted works which can be stored and transferred via books, magazines, tapes and CDs are now being stored in digital platforms and delivered to public proportionally with development of internet. Along with this method which is also known as digitalization of works, new concepts such as electronic publishing are introduced as new age copyrighted works.
Use of internet by a larger population, convenience of digitalization of works and the speed of data transfer among users has caused the easy copyright infringement. From this aspect, digital copyright infringement is much more complex than classical copyright infringement methods and thus, it is harder to resolve.
Copyright infringements are mostly realized in the content of websites. Such infringements are mainly seen in two different structures. Firstly, a number of works which are uploaded to websites by the right owners are infringed by way of unauthorized access and unrequited usage. In this way of infringement, the content is transferred without the consent of the right owner, by way of recording the content either to the computer or to a CD, tape or any other device. Secondly, the work is submitted to networks without the consent of the right owner, where it can be accessed through the internet by third parties.
To summarize, digitalized works such as music, movies and photographs and software, e-books and e-magazines, which are already digital, constitute the mostly infringed intellectual property works. Infringement of works which are available on digital platforms requires new and specialized legal regulations.
Is there an applicable legislation for protection of digital copyrights in Turkey?
Parallel to harmonization of the Turkish legislation with the directives of the European Union, the Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works has been majorly amended with the Law numbered 4630 and dated 2001. This amendment has introduced new regulations for transfer of works via internet. Subsequently, despite the fact that a separate legislation has not been enacted, the Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works is now sufficient for protection of intellectual property rights over the internet platform.
Which legal actions can be taken against digital copyright infringement in accordance with the applicable legislation in Turkey?
The Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works entitles the right owners, whose material and moral rights are infringed via internet, to initiate removal of infringement, prevention of infringement and compensation lawsuits. Furthermore, it contains criminal sanctions against the infringing parties.
While the above listed legal and criminal regulations constitute the possible classical actions available to copyright owners against all kinds of infringements, The Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works, which is amended with the Law numbered 5101, describes a particular action which can be taken against digital copyright infringement.
This new action introduces the “warn and remove” system of the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Besides from the internet user infringements, this system aims to prevent the intellectual property right infringements which are committed by the content and service providers. Accordingly, the infringed party is entitled to notify the content provider its request on prevention of such infringement within 3 days. In the event where the content provider does not fulfill this request, the right owner is entitled to complain to the Public Prosecutor. If the Public Prosecutor determines existence of infringement, than the Public Prosecutor may order from the service provider to cease the service provided to the content provider. Criminal lawsuits may be initiated against service and data providers who do not comply with such order of the Public Prosecutor.
When compared to the lengthy proceedings of legal and criminal lawsuits, the above explained action aims to provide a faster resolution mechanism which is suitable to the internet platform.
