RIYADH -- The Saudi Information Ministry said Tuesday it had destroyed more than 300,000 pirated video game diskettes and compact disks seized by officials in raids on video shops in Riyadh, AFP said. The discs were destroyed in front of representatives from the companies that produced the pirated software, the ministry 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.