ABSTRACT
In Arab countries there is a widespread impression that there has been a decline in creative and artistic activities which, in turn, has led to a decline in the output of copyright-based industries in those countries. Since there has been no systematic collection of data/statistics for verifying this impression, a systematic empirical study was needed, in order to provide scholars, business leaders and policy-makers with sound advice and assist them in making informed policy decisions concerning this important issue. It could have been, however, quite costly and time consuming to conduct such an analysis for all copyright-based industries and for all Arab countries. Therefore, a selective approach was required. This consisted of choosing four key copyright-based industries in five selected Arab countries (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon) and thus conducting five national case studies (the final reports of these case studies are listed in the Bibliography). 2
