TURKEY tr-national

Banned Turkish website wins international award

ISTANBUL – Daily News with wires | 1/7/2011 12:00:00 AM |

Though banned at home, a popular music- and video-sharing Turkish website walked away with an award for best music search engine at the Mashable Awards.

Though banned at home, a popular music- and video-sharing Turkish website walked away with an award for best music search engine at the Mashable Awards Thursday night in New York.

Fizy.org, which was launched by three Turkish entrepreneurs, won at the gala organized by Mashable, a news site that focuses on social and digital media, technology and web culture.

Despite the international honor, access in Turkey to fizy.org remains blocked due to a dispute with a phonographic society over copyright issues.

The Turkish Phonographic Industry Society, or MÜ-YAP, applied to the Beyoğlu Prosecutor’s Office to shut down fizy.com, claiming that the website broadcast music online without paying MÜ-YAP royalties for pieces owned by the society.

The prosecutor’s office consequently ruled Dec. 17 to block access to the site as result of MÜ-YAP’s application.

When users visited the website Tuesday evening, fizy.com was broadcasting a full-screen video clip of Madcon’s song “Beggin.’” Underneath the site’s logo were the words “We will be back...”

However, with the international honor, the fizy.org’s problems are expected to be solved, private news site CNN Türk reported Friday.

The Mashable Awards, formerly known as the Open Web Awards, honor major achievements in digital and social media, as well as the world’s best websites, applications and technological products. Over 1.3 million people voted online for this year’s winners.

Music-sharing websites myspace.com and last.fm have previously been blocked in Turkey following suits brought to court by MÜ-YAP.