Despite legal uncertainties, court decisions in various
jurisdictions have grasped with the issues of non-fungible tokens
(NFTs), digital tokens that cannot be exchanged or replaced and may
represent a tangible object in the real world. For the first time,
a court in Turkey rendered a preliminary injunction (PI) regarding
NFTs on June 21, 2022.
In the dispute filed before the Istanbul Third Civil
Intellectual Property Court (court), heirs of Cem Karaca, who was
an artist, songwriter, and composer, claimed that a portrait of Cem
Karaca was exploited unlawfully both in physical and in NFT form,
among other things, and that such uses infringed the copyright in
the portrait as per the Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works and
of the personality of the late artist according to the Turkish
Civil Code. They asked that the court determine the evidence
regarding alleged unauthorized use and requested a PI to block
access to the websites where the infringing content was
