MPs to Copyright Pyramids, Sphinx
27 November 2012
Members of Parliament in Egypt are expected to pass a law copyrighting the country’s ancient monuments and museum pieces, according to a BBC report. The law would require royalties to be paid whenever copies are made.
Zahi Hawass, who chairs Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, told the BBC the law would apply in all countries and that money raised through the law would help maintain thousands of sites across Egypt. Hawass said the law would apply to full-scale replicas of any object in any museum in Egypt and to commercial use of monuments include the pyramids and the sphinx.
“Even if it is for private use, they must have permission from the Egyptian government,” he said.
The proposed law would not, according to the news report, stop local and international artists reproducing monuments as long as they were not exact replicas.
In an Agence France Presse report Hawass said that, for example, the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas would not be affected because it is not an exact copy of a pyramid and because its interior is completely different than the interior of a pyramid.
