The UAE has blocked over 1,000 websites that violated intellectual property rights this year by illegally broadcasting entertainment content owned by various media networks.
Ministry of Economy (MoE) said Thursday most of the illegal websites were blocked during Ramadan, when there was more demand for multimedia content, said Dr. Abdulrahman Hassan Al Muaini, assistant undersecretary for Intellectual Property Rights Sector at the Ministry of Economy.
He noted: “Since the implementation of ‘InstaBlock’ initiative in the holy month of Ramadan, we have blocked a total of 1,117 websites that infringed upon intellectual property rights by illegally broadcasting entertainment content owned by various media networks.”
The number of illegal websites blocked in the UAE this year saw a significant increase as compared to the 2023, which saw only 62 sites being blocked.
“This proves we have successfully developed a comprehensive approach that offers a specialised instant response service for receiving complaints related to copyright infringements on live online broadcasting,” Al Muaini.
