According t
Circular 38a
of the

U.S. Copyright Office The United States Copyright Office (USCO), a part of the Library of Congress, is a United States government body that maintains records of copyright registration, including a copyright catalog. It is used by copyright title searchers who are ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

has no official

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

relations whatsoever with the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Published works originating in Iran thus are not copyrighted in the United States, regardless of the local copyright laws of these countries. Se
17 U.S.C. § 104(b)(2)
quoted in the Circular. Unpublished works, however, are copyrighted regardless of their origin or of the nationality of the works' authors, as long as they remain unpublished. See 17 U.S.C. § 104(a).

Freely distributed software

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

products can be copied and distributed freely in Iran, whether by government offices, universities, or personal users. There are shopping centers in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

and other cities in Iran that specialize in the distribution of often highly specialized software. Recently, there has been a surge in Iranian "

Warez Warez is a common computing and broader cultural term referring to pirated software (i.e. illegally copied, often after deactivation of anti-piracy measures) that is distributed via the Internet. Warez is used most commonly as a noun, a plural ...

" and " Crackz" websites, as the Iranian laws do not forbid hosting them in Iran. Hence, unlike most other countries where hosting these websites might potentially lead to prosecution, it is very efficient to do so in Iran.

Use of unlicensed content in the media

It is not uncommon nowadays for

IRIB The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB; fa, صدا و سيمای جمهوری اسلامی ايران, ''Sedā va Sīmā-ye Jomhūri-ye Eslāmi-ye Īrān'', , formerly called National Iranian Radio and Television until the Iranian rev ...

, Iran's state run television broadcasting organization, to air edited and

censored Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

versions of Hollywood blockbusters dubbed in

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

.Example Link from IRIB-1's program schedule:

Dead Man ''Dead Man'' is a 1995 American acid western film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Crispin Glover, John Hurt, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, Gabriel Byrne, Mili ...

, starring Johnny Depp: . Click on "Next Program" and "Previous program" to see more movie listings on IRIB-1. Some theaters however, such as ''Cinema Farhang'' in Tehran, screen the movies in the original language. None are screened with permission, as there are no relations between Iran and any US companies. In Iran, often the unlicensed

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

of a

Hollywood film The cinema of the United States, consisting mainly of major film studios (also known as Hollywood) along with some independent film, has had a large effect on the global film industry since the early 20th century. The dominant style of Ame ...

hits stores across Iran sooner than the movie is released in theaters in the US. Most newly released movies however, are in-theater-handycam versions. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of unlicensed DVD-quality reproductions. Academia, for example, relies almost entirely on translations of textbooks without licensing by foreign publishers. If in English, the books are offset prints that enable students to purchase textbooks at subsidized prices. However, the differences between the original and unauthorized copies of textbooks is the replacement of image inside the textbook in order to comply with

Iranian culture The culture of Iran () or culture of PersiaYarshater, Ehsa, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII no. 1 (1989) is among the most influential in the world. Iran, also known as Persia, is widely considered to be one of the cradles of civilization. Due t ...

instead of western-styled culture while retaining most of the original contents inside the textbook. Furthermore, these textbooks are often exported for sale at cheaper prices in other countries, which do maintain copyright relations with the United States.

References

External links

WIPO's BERNE membership list of statesIran’s New Law On IP Protection Moves It Onto International Stage
(2008)
Iranian Government encourages piracy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Copyright In Iran Iran–United States relations Law of Iran Iranian intellectual property law Mass media in Iran Communications in Iran Copyright law by country

Freely distributed software

Use of unlicensed content in the media

See also

References

External links