Pay up MGM!
Posted on 12/25/2007 8:02:51 PM PST by antiRepublicrat
Egypt's MPs are expected to pass a law requiring royalties be paid whenever copies are made of museum pieces or ancient monuments such as the pyramids.
Zahi Hawass, who chairs Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told the BBC the law would apply in all countries.
The money was needed to maintain thousands of pharaonic sites, he said.
Correspondents say the law will deal a blow to themed resorts across the world where large-scale copies of Egyptian artefacts are a crowd-puller.
Mr Hawass said the law would apply to full-scale replicas of any object in any museum in Egypt.
"Commercial use" of ancient monuments like the pyramids or the sphinx would also be controlled, he said.
"Even if it is for private use, they must have permission from the Egyptian government," he added.
But he said the law would not stop local and international artists reproducing monuments as long as they were not exact replicas.
The Luxor hotel in the US city of Las Vegas would also not be affected because it was not an exact copy of a pyramid and its interior was completely different, Mr Hawass told AFP news agency.
But he said claims by the hotel that it was "the only pyramid-shaped building in the world" could no longer be made.
The announcement came two days after an Egyptian newspaper called on the hotel to pay a share of its profits to the central Egyptian city of Luxor, which administers the ancient Valley of the Kings burial site.
I think point and laugh is the proper response.
Don’t copywrites expire 100 years after the death of the author/artist?
Minature golf courses around the country are in a panic.
The money was needed to maintain thousands of pharaonic sites
..
My recommendation to Zahi Hawass ..
Stop digging.
And just how does Egypt plan to enforce this in other countries?
There are lots of them:
West Sacramento:
San Francisco
Paris:
North Korea
Lots of luck enforcing this outside of Egypt.
Egypt hardly has a patent on the basic pyramid shape. Similar structures are found all over the world by people who never saw the Egyptian pyramids.
Miamisburg Mound, Ohio, USA
This mound is conical, like Silbury Hill in England. Archaeologists believe that it was constructed by the Adena Indians (800 BC – 100 AD). The mound sits on a 100 foot high bluff, and measures 877 feet in circumference. Originally it attained a height of 70 feet.
The one in West Sacramento looks more like a heathen Ziggurat than a pyramid.
It is Post-Modern Mayan, and will be the new stealth government HQ of Greater Aztlan.
After the Reconquesta is complete, hearts of White Devils will be ripped out at sunrise on the top deck.
The nearby lake is for making sacrifices of jewelry & maidens.
We were days from opening our new 200,000,000 sq foot Great Pyramid Retail and Incense Emporium in Torrance. Largest of it’s kind in the world, next to some firecracker stand in Hyderabad, India. Now what? What do you tell your workers who have been slaving to get the place built before the Holiday Season? Sorry guys but some Egyptians got around to copyrighting their floor plan 2,300 years after first consulting their lawyers? And we are supposed to believe this? Our lawyers will be waiting for the call. We’re not taking down one of the 346,892 60X60 126 ton granite blocks without a fight!
The ammonia molecule is pyramid-shaped. Of course I believe what they're saying is that we're not allowed to call it "pyramid" shaped anymore. But that would be trademark, not copyright. Methinks the Egyptians are confused.
Only commies can manage to make a pyramid butt-ugly.
DOn’t you have to be the author of an idea or an expression of an idea to receive a copyright?
These Egyptians did not create this expression...therefore they sould not be able to claim that they did and receive copyright protections.
Sounds like liberals looking for a new cash teat. Hey and if they succeed we can pay them with dollar bills which also has a pyramid in our national seal?
My response is "good luck with that".
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