Iranian filmmaker Saeed Roustayi

Iranian filmmaker Saeed Roustayi has been sentenced to 5 years isolation from other cinema professionals, and to take a brainwashing course in how to make films that embody the regime's propaganda.

It occurs to me that copyright law is what enables the Iranian regime to use threats to block the showing of Iranian's' films in other countries. Copyright gives the filmmakers the power to deny permission for such showings, and thus makes it effective for the regime to jail them if they don't deny permission.

I can imagine other countries could pass laws to permit showings of foreign films without authorization of the copyright holder or any other entity that "owns" some aspect, if a court finds that a repressive regime compels that entity to deny permission.