Egypt’s Ministry of Culture moved Tuesday to shut websites believed to be violating intellectual property rights and depriving artists of profits.
Under the latest directive, censorship authorities will monitor websites for copyright violations and report them to the Ministry of Information and Technology, which would then be authorized to close them down.
Egypt’s Union of Producers of Visual and Audio Art Recordings has recently complained to Culture Minister Farouk Hosny saying “blatant piracy” has caused severe financial losses.
Illegal copies of films, songs, and television series are often openly sold, broadcast and redistributed, said Ashraf al-Ashmawy, a legal consultant for the Minister of Culture. He was seeking to draft legislation to combat the trend.Â