Copyright Protection in Turkey

Copyright is the intellectual property right businesses think about least and rely on most. Software, marketing copy, product photography, website design, training materials, much of what a company actually owns and operates with is copyrighted material, protected automatically without any filing. That automatic protection is also exactly why ownership questions get overlooked: nobody files anything, so nobody is forced to confirm, in writing, who actually owns what. The gap surfaces years later, usually during a fundraising round, an acquisition, or a falling-out with a former contractor.

This guide covers how copyright works in Turkey under Law No. 5846, what is protected, the ownership rules that matter most for technology and creative businesses, voluntary registration, and enforcement.

Legal Notice: This page provides general legal information for educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a qualified attorney.

The Legal Framework

Copyright in Turkey is governed by the Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works No. 5846 (Fikir ve Sanat Eserleri Kanunu, FSEK), a separate statute from Industrial Property Code No. 6769, which covers trademarks, patents, and designs. Turkey’s membership in the Berne Convention and the WIPO Copyright Treaty means foreign authors receive the same protection as Turkish nationals under the national treatment principle, meaning works created abroad are protected in Turkey without any additional formality, and vice versa.

Copyright protection arises automatically upon creation of an original work, provided it bears the creator’s distinctive personal stamp (a baseline originality requirement common across most copyright systems). No registration, deposit, or notice is required for the right to exist.

What Is Protected

Law No. 5846 protects original works across several categories: literary and scientific works, including books, articles, technical documentation, and computer software, which is explicitly protected as a literary work; artistic works, including photography, graphic design, illustration, and architectural works; musical compositions and arrangements; and cinematographic and audiovisual works, including films and video content with multiple contributors.

Economic rights allow the rights holder to control and monetise the work: reproduction, distribution, adaptation, and public communication or performance. Moral rights, including attribution and integrity of the work, protect the personal connection between the author and the work and, under Turkish law, remain with the individual author even where economic rights have been transferred or assigned to someone else.

Ownership: The Question That Actually Matters

This is where general copyright guides tend to be vague in exactly the place businesses need precision. There are two materially different situations, and they are not governed by the same rule.

Works Created by Employees

Under Article 18 of Law No. 5846, where a work is created by an employee in the course of, and as a result of, their employment duties, the economic rights in that work are exercised by the employer, unless otherwise agreed. This applies straightforwardly to software developers, designers, content creators, and other employees whose job function is to produce the copyrighted material in question. The moral rights, including attribution and integrity, remain with the individual employee-author regardless, since moral rights are not assignable under Turkish law, though this rarely creates practical friction for ordinary business software and content.

This is a different mechanism from the employee invention framework for patents under Articles 113 to 122 of Industrial Property Code No. 6769, covered in our Patent Registration guide, which requires a notification and claim process and entitles the employee inventor to separate compensation. For copyright, the economic rights pass to the employer by operation of law for in-scope employment work, with no equivalent claim procedure or mandatory additional compensation. Businesses sometimes assume the same rules apply to both, but they do not, and the distinction matters when drafting employment agreements for technical teams whose output includes both patentable inventions and copyrighted code or documentation.

Works Created by Contractors and Freelancers

This is the gap that causes real problems, and it is entirely avoidable with the right paperwork at the right time.

The Article 18 employer presumption applies to employment relationships. It does not automatically apply to independent contractors, freelance developers, outside agencies, or consultants. Software written by a freelance developer, marketing content produced by an outside agency, or a logo designed by a contracted illustrator remains, by default, owned by the individual or entity that created it, regardless of who paid for it, unless a written agreement explicitly assigns the economic rights to the commissioning business.

For technology companies, this is not a theoretical risk. A startup that built its first product using contractor developers, common in early-stage businesses before a full engineering team is hired, may discover during investor due diligence or an acquisition that core pieces of its codebase were never formally assigned, meaning the contractor technically still owns that code. Retroactively obtaining a clean assignment from a contractor who has since become aware of this leverage, particularly after the business has become valuable, is a materially weaker negotiating position than securing the assignment in the original engagement agreement.

Practical standard: Every contractor, freelancer, or agency engagement involving the creation of software, design, written content, or other copyrightable material should include an explicit, written assignment of economic rights to the commissioning business, executed at the time of engagement, not after delivery. We review this routinely as part of IP due diligence for technology clients and as a standard clause in services agreements we draft for clients commissioning creative or technical work.

Joint and Collaborative Works

Works created jointly by multiple authors, common in software development, film production, and collaborative creative projects, are governed by specific rules on joint ownership under Law No. 5846, generally requiring the consent of all co-authors for licensing or exploitation decisions affecting the whole work, unless the parties have agreed otherwise. For commercial software or content with multiple contributors, contractual clarity on each contributor’s rights and how exploitation decisions are made avoids needing unanimous consent for routine commercial decisions later.

Voluntary Registration

Although not required for protection to exist, voluntary registration with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism‘s copyright registry creates an official, date-stamped record of the work and its claimed authorship. This does not create the right, as the right already exists from creation, but it creates useful evidence in any later dispute over who created a work and when, being particularly valuable for software, where development history can otherwise be difficult to prove conclusively years after the fact, and for works (certain categories of software and audiovisual works in particular) where Turkish practice has historically made registration a more standard step in the relevant industry.

For businesses with valuable, commercially significant works, registering key software releases, core marketing assets, or flagship creative works at meaningful milestones is a reasonable practice, though wholesale registration of every piece of content a business produces is rarely proportionate to the benefit.

Duration

Copyright protection lasts for the lifetime of the author plus 70 years following their death, after which the work enters the public domain. For works where the economic rights holder is a legal entity (for example, certain employer-owned or audiovisual works where the law attributes rights differently), specific duration rules under Law No. 5846 can vary from the standard life-plus-70 formula, and should be checked against the specific category of work involved.

Licensing

Copyright owners can license their works, exclusively or non-exclusively, for specific uses, territories, and durations. Software licensing, content licensing for publishing or media use, and licensing of creative works for advertising or merchandising are all common commercial arrangements built on the underlying copyright. Well-drafted licences specify the scope of permitted use clearly, since ambiguity about whether a licence covers, for example, all future versions of a software product or only the version delivered at signing, is a recurring source of dispute.

Enforcement Against Infringement

Unauthorised reproduction, distribution, adaptation, or public communication of a protected work constitutes infringement under Law No. 5846.

Civil remedies before the specialised IP Courts include injunctions to stop ongoing infringement, damages calculated by reference to the infringer’s profits or the rights holder’s losses, and orders for the seizure or destruction of infringing copies.

Criminal remedies are available for commercial-scale infringement, software piracy, large-scale unauthorised distribution, and counterfeit physical media, and can involve criminal complaints leading to raids and seizures.

Digital enforcement has become the dominant practical concern for most rights holders: unauthorised online distribution, software piracy, and content scraping move faster and at greater scale than physical infringement ever did. Notice-and-takedown requests to platforms and hosting providers are often the fastest practical first step, with formal legal action reserved for persistent or commercially significant infringement that takedown requests alone do not resolve.

Software Specifically: A Recap for Technology Businesses

Because software sits at the intersection of several of the issues above, it is worth restating the practical checklist specifically: code written by employees in the course of their employment is owned by the employer by default under Article 18; code written by contractors or freelancers is not owned by the commissioning business without a written assignment; moral rights remain with individual human authors regardless of who holds the economic rights; and voluntary registration, while optional, can meaningfully strengthen the evidentiary position for core proprietary code in the event of a dispute or due diligence process. We build this checklist into the IP review for every technology client at the company formation stage, rather than as an afterthought once a problem surfaces.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to register copyright in Turkey?

No. Protection arises automatically upon creation of an original work under Law No. 5846. Voluntary registration with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism creates useful evidence of authorship and creation date but is not required for the right to exist.

Who owns software written by my employees?

The employer, by default, for software and other copyrightable work created in the course of the employee’s job duties, under Article 18 of Law No. 5846. The employee retains non-transferable moral rights, including attribution and integrity, but this rarely creates practical issues for ordinary commercial software.

Who owns software written by a freelance developer or outside agency?

The freelancer or agency, by default, unless a written agreement assigns the economic rights to the business that commissioned the work. This is the single most common copyright ownership gap we see in technology company due diligence, and it is straightforward to avoid with the right contract terms from the start of the engagement.

How long does copyright last in Turkey?

Generally the lifetime of the author plus 70 years, after which the work enters the public domain. Some categories of work have specific duration rules that can differ from this standard formula.

Are foreign authors protected under Turkish copyright law?

Yes. Under the national treatment principle in the Berne Convention, to which Turkey is a party, foreign authors receive the same protection in Turkey as Turkish nationals, without needing to register or take any additional action in Turkey.

What should I do if someone is using my copyrighted material without permission?

The appropriate response depends on the platform and scale of the infringement. For online infringement, a notice-and-takedown request to the relevant platform is often the fastest practical step. For persistent, commercial-scale, or high-value infringement, formal legal action, including civil claims for damages and injunctions, or in serious cases criminal complaints before the specialised IP Courts, is the appropriate route.

Is the employee invention rule for patents the same as the employee work rule for copyright?

No, and this distinction matters for technology and R&D teams. Patent employee inventions are governed by Articles 113 to 122 of Industrial Property Code No. 6769, which require employee notification, give the employer a claim period, and entitle the employee to separate compensation. Copyright in employee-created works passes to the employer automatically under Article 18 of Law No. 5846, with no equivalent claim procedure or mandatory additional compensation. The same R&D team can produce output covered by both regimes simultaneously, including code (copyright) and a novel technical method (patent), under different rules.

Working With Aslan Attorney

Aslan Attorney advises technology companies, creative businesses, and publishers on copyright strategy and ownership in Turkey. Our services cover IP ownership audits for technology and creative businesses, drafting contractor and employment agreements with proper copyright assignment language, voluntary registration for significant works, licensing agreements, and enforcement including takedown coordination and litigation before the specialised IP Courts.

For the broader intellectual property picture, see our Intellectual Property Law in Turkey overview.

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