Saudi authorities have burned some 652,000 pirated video game compact disks seized by customs officials at ports and airports throughout the kingdom, the Al-Iqtissadiya newspaper reported Tuesday.
The compact disks, destroyed in Riyadh, were part of 820,000 seized recently, the paper said.
Authorities were also looking into copyright violations at Riyadh University where some unauthorized copies of books have been sold to students, it said.
According to a specialized study published in May, losses from copyright violations in the Middle East increased massively in 1999.
Piracy rates were highest in Oman and Lebanon, where 88 percent of software in use is pirated, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA) said - RIYADH (AFP)
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