New law to bring harsher penalties for illegal downloads in Turkey

A new law that will make it easier to enforce copyright laws will be considered by Parliament in March. The change in Article 5101, or the Law to Fight Piracy, will confer the responsibility of monitoring illegal music and film downloads on Internet service providers.

The new law, inspired by the French version named Sarkozy's Law, after President Nicholas Sarkozy who personally drafted the law in France, would make it easier to enforce the law pertaining to piracy and copyright infringements on the Web. The Turkish version of Sarkozy's Law proposed by the Culture Ministry would make it possible for illegal downloaders to have their Internet disconnected for two months to one year. People who engage in illegal downloading will receive two warning emails, after which their Internet service can be suspended by court order.

The law has yet to be widely discussed in Turkey, but experts are already planning to form committees to discuss the repercussions of the law. Burak Büyükdemir, an expert on Internet trends and Web entrepreneurship, said he plans to meet with lawyers and Internet experts to discuss the best way to implement this law.

"As a copyright holder, I find copyright laws to be an undeniable right, so there is no problem there," said Büyükdemir. "However, if the law threatens the right to privacy or is used with mal-intent, then we have a problem," he said.

"If the tradeoff ends up being between a commercial right and an individual right, then it is unacceptable. If we go down that slippery slope it may be very hard to go back," he said.

There were widespread protests in Sweden when torrent site Pirate Bay was shut down and a similar law was implemented. In France, the law brought to question President Sarkozy's involvement with leaders in the music industry. In Turkey, music industry leaders say the law will increase legal digital downloads, bringing in more business for the likes of Turkcell, Avea and Vodafone.

In the end, this is about protecting the industry more than the artists, technology journalist Ersu Ablak said. Artists, producers and bands are not the ones hurt by illegal downloading. "In Turkey when you look at an artist like Fazil Say, you see that he only sells CDs in the 10,000s but when his music is available for a free download on the Web, his popularity rises, more people go to his concerts and he therefore makes more money," he said.

"If we look at blockbusters as opposed to new or less well-known material there is a similar condition," he said. "‘Twilight’ is an example. Regardless of the fact that it holds the title for being the most illegally downloaded movie, it has managed to sell over 3 million copies on DVD on just the opening day. Digital sale paid-for single track downloads saw a 24 percent global raise in 2008, while digital albums were up 36 percent. It is estimated that the digital sales are now worth $3.7 billion worldwide," he said. These kinds of numbers make it difficult to shed tears for these large corporations, said Ablak.

It is possible to hide your tracks on the Web. And people will usually find ways to circumvent the legal and technological barriers put up to discourage illegal downloading. The key to successfully protecting copyrights and intellectual property is through awareness, said Turkish Information Technology Foundation Secretary-General Behçet Envari. "This is a matter of culture; no law will solve the problem completely. We need to educate people about what copyright is and what intellectual property is," he said.

Ersu Ablak agreed with Envari. "People have already found ways to hide files within another. So regardless of how much money the ISPs spend on regulation, people will find a way around it," he said.

It all comes down to how much respect people have for intellectual property. Proposed solutions to piracy on the Web will only serve to stem the tide.

/Hurriyet Daily News/