Legal Journal

Copyright Cases in the Advertising Industry

One of the ways for allocating human intelligence and creativity to the market economy is the advertising area. The area consists of four main group of players.

The first group of players is the creative, principal players such as writers, poets, photograph artists, owners of musical works, graphic designers etc., who are called authors and carry the title of copy right owner/work owner. The second group of players changes according to the type of the ad created. As formerly mentioned, in case of an audio ad product, they appear as text writers of ad vocalization and people who vocalize the text; in case of a printed product, they appear as graphic designers, photograph artists, authors of the ad text; and in case of a TV commercial they do appear as scriptwriters, directors or composers.

The third group is the customers who request the ad product and the agency that will bring together the factors necessary for the ad creation. The advertising agency also acts as an intermediary between the authors and customers as well as managing the transfer of copyright-financial rights under relevant agreements. There is also a third group that can be evaluated as ‘performer artists’ such as voice actors or commercial film actors, etc. Professional should also be noted as players given the fact that they do work as experts in disputes and work more actively in the industry.

In order to understand copyright disputes in the advertising industry, types of advertising media shall be determined. Below are the main types of advertising media:

• Advertising commercials, advertising campaign designs
• Corporate logos; corporate identity designs
• Advertisement texts
• Press release texts
• Logo designs
• Packaging & label designs
• POP
• Banners
• Brochures
• Catalogues
• Typecasting
• Shop interior designs

In view of the multiplicity of advertising media and industry players and the principals of the copyright law such as (i) the principle of expressly naming each and every contractual right separately; (ii) Written form requirement for transfer and license agreements; (iii) inability to transfer copyright before the creation of a work, it may be easily stated that the relationship between the players of advertising sector and advertising media is quite complicated.

Therefore most of the copyright conflicts arise at the contact points of the actors – advertising media relationship.

Commercials are the most controversial areas when their own principles and traditions meet copyright laws. It is inevitable to face disputes when the relation with authors is not properly organized, or the rights are not duly transferred, or the topics such as duration and number of displays are left open. It is also common that the advertising budget and the agency fees (placement fees) are confused with copyright payments. Lacking regulations in performing artist contracts also cause additional problems.

Some of the conflicts are related to photographs. If the application area is not determined in detail in which these works will take place; for example, a photograph that is licensed for use only in brochures, is used on billboards or the work is amended without permission of its author; they become subject of legal disputes.

There are also disputes arising from unauthorized use of designs, photographs, poems; or not transferring/licensing copyright on packaging labels although they are graphic works; or use of press release text in radio announcement, which constitute a major part of copyright claims in advertising industry

Av. Haluk İnanıcı - Ege İnanıcı