Saudi Arabia blocks 4,000 websites for copyright breaches

Cairo: More than 4,000 websites were blocked for violating intellectual property copyrights in Saudi Arabia in one year, a Saudi official has said.

“I advise everyone to deal with licenced sites to protect others’ rights,” added Chief Executive Officer of the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP) Abdulaziz Al Swailem.

He cited efforts to expose illegal sites, accusing them of encroaching on other people’s rights. “Some people post links in good faith such as those books that benefit people, but we have to respect preserved,” Al Swailem told Al Saudaih television.

He added that SAIP would soon set up platforms tasked with marketing products of innovators in Saudi Arabia.

In its mission statement, SAIP says it aims to regulate, support, develop, sponsor, protect, enforce and upgrade the fields of intellectual property in the kingdom in accordance with international best practices and is organizationally linked to the prime minister.

The Riyadh-based government body comprises offices for patents, trademarks and copyright protection.

Last month, the Saudi Ministry of Commerce announced blocking 22

websites involved in fraud in three months.

The ministry’s spokesman Abdulrahman Al Hussain said that the blocked sites had promoted bogus apps involved in swindling and defrauding consumers.

In recent months, Saudi media reported several arrests linked to different fraud cases.

Saudi security authorities earlier in February said they had arrested three citizens suspected of having defrauded a commercial establishment of SR2.9 million in a false impersonation case.

Under Saudi law, fraud is punishable by up to seven years in prison and a maximum fine of SR5 million.