This past Thursday, the Kurdish Globe, the first and only English language newspaper in Erbil, Iraq, published a fascinating article on the struggles of Iraqi authors.  Apparently the Iraqi parliament, inundated by more pressing legislative issues, has yet to enact copyright law:

[One Kurdish singer] said since 2006 he has not made any video clips for his songs due to financial reasons. “The cost of my 2006 album was US$12,000, after I distributed the album to music stores; sales for the original copy were only US$1,000 because music stores illegally copied my album. I know some stores sold 3,000 copies.”

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The head of the Cultural Committee in Kurdistan Parliament, Arez Abdullah, confirmed to the Globe that Parliament received the draft law. “Parliament didn’t have time to discuss the problem of copyright in Kurdistan; there are too many draft laws in Parliament needing to be discussed,” said MP Abdullah.

The story is a not so subtle reminder of the importance of intellectual property rights for native authors if a country wants a flourishing domestic content industry.