We’ve all heard the news, Egybest along other pirated websites are down forever. And it’s been going viral around all social media; people are mad about this and expressing their anger. If you feel a bit lost and can't make up your mind or where you stand, we decided to help you out and tell you all about it.
Egyptian authorities have shut down many pirated websites; because they’re illegally stealing content and providing it for free on their websites without minding the copyrights.
The official page for Egybest also shared a post on Facebook saying how bad they feel, and how this is unfair.
People, on the other hand, are expressing their frustrations on all social media platforms. Some even tried providing other links for websites that work like Egybest, but eventually, they all failed to do anything. Since everyone heard the news, they started making theories behind this decision that came all of a sudden, especially that we’ve had such websites since forever…so, why now and not before?
People claim that the real reason behind this decision is the new website which is called Watch it, and because this new website came out, even Youtube is not authorized to feature Ramadan’s series. Then the pirated websites started featuring these series and that’s why they were shut down. And that this all a scheme so we could register in the new website.
Law of Piracy exists and effective around the world, in the US, for example, it states clearly in the field of music: Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, rental or digital transmission of copyrighted sound recordings. (Title 17, United States Code, Sections 501 and 506).
In 2018 with the massive rise of the blue whale game, the Egyptian parliament enforced a law to avoid cyber threats with all its types like hacking, and hate speech. They also legalized digital evidence for the first time in courts. And one of the parts of the law stated: “Anyone responsible for operating a website, private account, email or information system that encourages committing a cyber-crime will face at least one year of imprisonment and a fine between LE 20,000 and LE 200,000”.
Many Egyptian writers like Omer Taher and others always encourage us to respect and protect the writer’s creative work, which we violate by buying their books with less prices from unauthorized venues for example.
So, after reading all this what do you think about what happened? Do you agree with shutting down pirated websites or not?
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By Yara Tarek
