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The Islamic Republic remains in many ways cut off economically from the rest of the world. Big-name Western brands shun the market for fear of violating sanctions that remain in place even after the country's landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
That means no KFC—just local upstarts like "Iran Fried Chicken"—or credit and ATM cards connected to global banking networks. Visitors to the country must carry in thick wads of dollars. Many popular social-networking sites like Facebook are blocked by government censors.
Order from Amazon or call an Uber? Forget about it.
In their place, a surprisingly active tech startup scene has sprung up. It's driven by a growing number of Iranian millennials who see their country of 80 million people not as an isolated outcast but as a market ripe with opportunity.
Among the fastest-growing companies in the digital transformation is Snapp, the ride-hailing app Meisami uses.
He estimates he makes more than $900 working in a good month, pulling in a much larger cut per fare than he would driving for a traditional taxi-style car service. His hours are long—12 hours a day most days a week—but he likes being able to pick when and where he works.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday June 05 2017, @10:44PM (4 children)
Well it seems they have an active copyright violation industry. Not so sure they are producing anything or much in the way of new and exciting never seen before things or am I missing something from the article?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @10:57PM (1 child)
Porn
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @12:46AM
At least get it politically correct.... Sheep porn.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by n1 on Monday June 05 2017, @11:12PM
It's not like they are able to go and get the appropriate licenses for the intellectual property due to the sanctions and general exclusion from the global economy, so calling it 'copyright violation industry' is not really appropriate. They are not under the jurisdiction where this copyright is recognized, and the same would apply the other way around, copyright privileges and patents registered in Iran would not be respected elsewhere as a result of the geopolitical environment.
You can't just go around asserting jurisdiction and interpretations of copyright law as legitimate onto other sovereign states.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @01:37AM
Oddly, I had just the opposite experience ~10 years ago. Was contacted by an engineering student from Iran who wanted to translate part of our reference/text. Said that his faculty would not even let him start on a translation until there was proper permission.
Our publisher wouldn't touch it, due to an earlier problem shipping a military history book to Iran. Several FBI agents showed up at the publishers, shiny black shoes and all. This was a classic g-man screw-up, that book was titled something like, "Allied Missiles and Bombs of WWII"...but the "of WWII" was truncated on the invoice (bad decision by whoever programmed that billing system!!) FBI was certain that the book contained modern, secret material.
Anyway, after some pleasant email negotiation with the Iranian students and faculty, we (authors who hold the copyright) agreed to a translation under certain restrictions. As far as I can tell, the students followed the agreement and I have a copy of several chapters in Farsi-MS-Word, reading right-to-left. We had an engineer friend who was Iranian-American (came to USA during Shah times) do some proofreading and checking up on the students, all good.
I still email with one of the students, nice guy.