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 or the sphinx.

Zahi Hawass, who chairs Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the law would apply to full-scale replicas of any object in any museum in Egypt, in all countries, and that the move was necessary to pay for the upkeep of the country’s thousands of pharaonic sites.

This could be a potential blow to themed resorts all across the world, from Vegas to Tokyo, where large-scale copies of Egyptian artefacts pull in the crowds.

Personally, I’m against involving copyright laws in stuff like this. The Pyramids, the Sphinx, Machu Picchu, Stonehenge, and all the other historic sites left for us by older civilizations are part of our world heritage, a heritage that was left for all of us and that we’re all proud of. They’re not anyone’s property to demand royalties for.

[Sources: Google News, BBC News]
[Via: Slashdot]