Turkish copyright law is
documented in the law number 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works.
Turkey is revising its
intellectual property rights laws in
order to align them with
WIPO standards.
Turkey is a party to the
Berne Convention,
the
Rome Convention and the
TRIPS Agreement. Turkish copyright
law was made compliant with these treaties after its 1995 and 2001 amendments.
Copyright
applies to literary, musical or artistic works in their very widest sense,
e.g. written text, graphics, artwork, drawings and sketches, data compilations
and software are all Copyright works
As an Intellectual Property right, Copyright
protection exists automatically and protects the author of the works against
actual copying. Unfortunately Copyright will not protect the author against
somebody else independently creating identical or closely similar works.
Copyright protection usually exists for life of
author plus a further 70 years although the pre-existing 50-year protection
period still applies for some works.
It is worth noting that if not established by a
legally-binding written contract, Copyright ownership may end up with someone
who was never intended to own it!
