Intellectual property · Legal information

What Happens If a Website's Look Is Copied?

Author · Av. Ayşenur Konar, Avukat

Published ·

In short

If a website's look is copied, the place that is looked at is whether the page text stands on the rival site. This question is not the debate of whether the software was patented. The right holder reads their own sentences, the menu order, and the counterpart on the rival page side by side, with a dated screen document. Similarity of a ready-made theme is not treated as a copy of your sentences, and the theme file does not stand in for the overlap of sentences in the screen document. If the agency contract does not write an assignment, the text is not treated as having passed to the agency by itself.

The text and the theme

The product description, the about page, and the frequently asked questions may be sentences that belong to you, and the same sentences standing on the rival site is separate from the theme colour looking alike. A theme is a skeleton that many people have bought, and the skeleton does not by itself tell of authorship. The separation of software between copyright and patent sits in the software record. The separate name of a database sits in the database record. This record does not redefine those two regimes, and it does not have the page text tied to a software patent.

An overlapping sentence may stand in the product description, on the about page, or in the frequently asked questions, and if the sentence is the same even though the place changed, a record is built. The menu order by itself is similarity of a theme. If the text was carried together with the order, the two are shown separately. Other sites that bought the ready-made theme may stay on the same skeleton without carrying your sentence.

The screen record

The screenshot carries the address and the date, and the address is not the domain-name dispute itself. Unauthorised reproduction of the text sits in the work record. A product photograph standing in a rival shop window sits in the product photograph record. Text without a photograph may also be a record, and similarity of colour without text may not be enough by itself. The screen document shows which sentence stood at which address, in a way that can be put into the petition.

If an image has no date and also has no address line, which day's page it is is debated, and the date is written into the file separately. A domain-name dispute is a record separate from the copy of the page text, and the address looking alike does not prove the text. Even if the photograph and the text stand in the same frame, the petition tells the two on separate lines.

The agency contract

Whoever wrote the page, the contract may have left the right with that person. Being told to build the site for the agency does not by itself mean the text passed to the agency. The agency giving the same text to a subcontractor does not make your sentence the subcontractor's work. The subcontractor record is looked for in the annex of the contract, and if there is no annex an assignment is not assumed. A decision is not built without this annex either.

If the contract writes with whom the economic rights stayed, the reading is in that sentence, and if it does not write it, an assignment is not treated as having arisen by itself. The same text the agency sent to the subcontractor does not make your sentence the subcontractor's work. The list of work in the annexes is read side by side with the sentence in the screenshot.

How the comparison is built

The comparison is your sentence and the sentence on the rival page being set side by side, and the theme colour looking alike does not stand in for this comparison. If the screen document carries an address and a date, which day's copy it is is shown. The application petition does not add whether the software was patented to this comparison. The decision does not assume that the text passed to the agency when there is no contract annex.

What is separated in the page record

The question of what happens if a website's look is copied is built from the overlap of your sentences and the rival page. An Ankara lawyer separates, from the screen record, that the office being in Çankaya does not change the competent court. A ready-made theme does not stand in for this overlap. The application petition does not paste a software patent onto the page text, and it does not put the screen document in place of the theme file. When there is no contract annex, an assignment is not assumed either.

Conclusion

In the website file, the place that is looked at is the overlap of the sentences and the date of the screen. A ready-made theme does not stand in for this overlap, and the agency contract is not treated as having assigned the text by itself. If the screen document does not carry an address and a date, which day's page it is is shown separately in the petition, and the theme file does not complete this lack. The sentence that is compared is kept apart from the software's patent record. The frame sits on the intellectual property page. The basis is the Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works.

Legislation

Frequently asked questions

Is similarity of a theme infringement?

A ready-made theme may stand the same on many sites. A claim of infringement is read over the text you wrote and the order you chose, more than over the theme file.

Is the software's patent this article too?

No. Whether the software is copyright or patent is taken up in a separate article. This record reads the page text and the layout the visitor sees.

Are product photographs a copied website too?

A photograph appearing on a rival product is taken up in a separate article. If the page text stands, there is a record even without the photograph. The two are separated even in the same screenshot.

Related reading

This article sits under one practice area. The neighbouring guides carry the detail that does not belong in this text.

Practice areas · Intellectual property

Sources

AK

Author

Av. Ayşenur Konar

Lawyer on the Ankara Bar Association roll, founder of Konar Hukuk. This text is general information; a specific file is reviewed separately. Author profile · Editorial policy

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