A guest contributor to the Saudi Gazette lamented the Kingdom’s inability to stop pirating, saying “because of our negligence and violation of intellectual property rights, we have been prevented from buying electronic books from the world’s major providers of such material.”
Abdullah Azzam noted that he was unable to purchase ebooks through Google Play because Google does not permit its electronic books to be sold in the Kingdom:
The main reason for this is the lack of respect for intellectual property rights in our country. Saudi Arabia is on the list of countries to be kept under close surveillance because of their violation of property rights. This was included in the 2012 report of the International Union of Property Owners (UIPI).
Saudi Arabia joined the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 1982. Azzam wrote that the current situation is causing the loss of billions while fines are comparatively low.
