ABU DHABI // An Egyptian publishing house making its first appearance at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair has been fined and banned from the event for the next five years. The stall for Al Mass, an educational publisher, is the first to be shut mid-fair after it was found to be displaying material not adherent to copyright laws, according to the fair's organisers.
Members of the book fair's management team posing as regular shoppers visited on Wednesday and discovered a number of CDs of short stories that had not been approved under the fair's copyright conditions. The stall was immediately closed, while the publishers were given a fine of Dh50,000 and told not to return for five years. Organisers said the copyright conditions had been considerably tightened this year, due in part to the capital playing host to the International Publisher's Association's biannual Copyright Symposium before the fair.
Juma'a al Qubasi, the director of the fair, said: "Abu Dhabi International Book Fair follows strict copyright regulations; any publisher violating the law will be blacklisted for the next five coming years." @Email:aseaman@thenational.ae
