As BBC reported, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass said that this is about a kind of copyright. It is also assumed that the law will apply beyond Egypt.
According to the official, the law will affect life-sized copies of any works of art or household items stored in Egyptian museums. The new law will also regulate the commercial use of copies of the Egyptian pyramids and the Sphinx. 'Even for personal use, permission from the Egyptian government is required,' Hawass said.
It is assumed that the law will not affect artists wishing to reproduce Egyptian antiquities only if it is an original work, not an exact copy. For example, the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas, USA, is not in danger because the building looks like a somewhat distorted copy of an ancient pyramid. However, according to Zahi Hawass, the hotel management is no longer entitled to claim that Luxor is 'the only pyramid-shaped building in the world.'
The new law could deal a serious blow to theme parks around the world, as copies of pyramids and the Sphinx, so attractive to the public, are present in many of them.