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No. The remuneration for reprography only applies to copies of copyright protected works made from a paper medium (such as a book, newspaper or course pack) or similar medium (such as transparencies, slides or microfiches) on a paper or similar medium. In practice it will mainly be copies from paper to paper.

Work is protected by copyright if it demonstrates originality and is materialised in a concrete form.

No formalities are required for copyright protection. The author does not have to file his work or have it registered: the protection takes effect automatically as soon as the two conditions are met. It is valid until 70 years after the death of the author.

Examples of protected works are: all artistic writings, scientific and educational works, encyclopaedias, courses, sheet music, photographs, illustrations, drawings, painting and more generally, newspapers, magazines, collected works with annotations, manuals, topographical maps, street maps, construction plans

• The works that do not meet the two conditions of originality and concrete form. In this sense, ideas, concepts or rules do not fall under copyright protection, as long as they have not been materialised in a concrete form.
• Protected works that have existed longer than 70 years after the death of the author. After the period of 70 years, the works enter the public domain.
• Government documents and official acts of the government: decrees, action and deeds of the national, European and international governments. This concerns laws, decrees, or Ministerial decrees, Ministerial circulars, parliamentary documents, directives, ordinances, announcements, recommendations, resolutions, treaties, judicial decisions, notarial acts.

No. The Copyright Act strictly regulates in which cases you are allowed to make copies without permission of the author.

Thus, you may only copy a protected work if all legal conditions have been met. In summary, this concerns the following conditions:

• The work was made public by the author or with his permission.
• If it is a matter of sheet music or books, you may only copy short fragments. Only works of visual art, photographs and articles may be copied in full.
• You may only make the copies for private purposes or exclusively for internal professional use and as illustration in the context of education or for scientific research.
• You may not use your copies for profit-making purposes, for example by selling them.

If you make copies without permission of the author and without meeting the legal conditions, then you will still have to pay the remuneration. Moreover, you risk legal prosecution by the rights holders, on the grounds of breach of copyright. That is why it is necessary for you to receive permission from the rights holder if you make copies that do not meet the legal conditions.

No. The reprography remuneration is not an indirect form of taxation, but a copyright based remuneration in order to compensate the loss incurred by the authors and publishers. Reprobel is a private organisation that collects reprography rights on protected works. After deduction of the operating costs of Reprobel the money collected goes to the authors and publishers of the copied works.

In order to be legally compliant, each year you must fill out the declaration form you receive from Reprobel or establish a contract with Reprobel. Private individuals do not receive a declaration form.

Then you will still be given the chance to bring yourself into compliance with the form ‘Mutual agreement’ that you receive from Reprobel (usually each year in November). We recommend submitting your declaration on time: if you submit it late, you will have to pay more

• Reprobel can send to the operator levy payer an application for sending information in order to verify whether the declaration corresponds to the reality. The Minister also receives a copy of this.
• The parties can also have an investigation performed by an expert in order to help them determine the amount of the remuneration.

If you do not submit your declaration or submit it late, or you submit a clearly erroneous or incorrect declaration, then you risk the following legally determined sanctions:

• Loss of the preferential rate for ‘cooperation’. You are then required to pay a higher rate per copy made of a protected work;
• Reprobel can send you a request for information. The Minister receives a copy of this;
• Reprobel can request an investigation by an expert, the costs of which can be billed to you;
• Reprobel can file a lawsuit. You can be sentenced for breach of copyright.

Yes. The law explicitly stipulates that, after deduction of administrative costs, Reprobel must distribute the money collected in equal parts between the Board of Authors and the Board of Publishers. The Boards in turn distribute the remunerations to the rights holders.

Yes. Even if you do not have a photocopy machine, you have to report this to us on the declaration form. That has to be done each year because your situation can change

No. The operator levy is owed by the person, institution or company that controls, runs and manages the photocopy machine. That is often the machine’s owner but it can also be the person who leases or rents the machine.

By photocopy machines the legislators mean devices such as a photocopier, fax, scanner, a multifunctional device with a copying function, an office offset printer or a duplicator (mimeograph).

Yes, because the reprography remuneration comes from two sources:

• The equipment levy on photocopy machines is paid by the manufacturer (who can bill this on to customers), the importer and the intracommunity purchaser of photocopy machines as soon as they enter the market in Belgium.
• The operator levy is paid by companies, institutions and independent contractors based on the number of copies of protected works that they make with the device.

Yes. Even if you never make copies from a protected work, you are legally obligated to notify us of this each year. You must use the declaration form to do this.

Yes, per reproduced copy, you must pay remuneration.

Yes. Under certain conditions, the law allows a short fragment from a book, a complete article or a work of visual art (photograph, diagrams etc.) to be reproduced without prior permission from the author or publisher. One of these conditions is that you pay a remuneration for these reproductions, even if you have the permission of the author or the publisher to reproduce their work.

The remuneration that you pay to Sabam is the remuneration for the public performance or interpretation of works (such as a concert, party, theatre performance, music on a website) for which the authors, composers or publishers are members of Sabam. The remuneration for Reprobel is for the copying of works (such as a fragment of a theatrical text, an article or photograph). Reprobel collects this remuneration for all authors and publishers.

The remuneration that you pay to Semu as a music academy concerns the copying of complete compositions (such as a song or a composition for piano) or long fragments. The reprography remuneration that you pay to Reprobel is for copying a short fragment from a work as an illustration, for example for a class on music history.

Even as an author or publisher, you are required to file a declaration and you must pay reprography remuneration if you copy a protected work. In principle Reprobel is required to send a declaration to every company, institution and independent contractor who makes a photocopy machine available to others in exchange for payment or otherwise.

The government requires Reprobel to contact all those liable to pay remunerations, whom they are reasonably able to identify, by letter. That forms part of its job of collecting and distributing the remunerations for reprography. In order to be able to identify those liable to pay remunerations, Reprobel is given access to the site of the RSZ (State Social Security Administration). Reprobel is the only society that is allowed to and required to manage these reprography rights and only uses your information to carry out this legal task.

That can be done through your declaration form, by e-mail to questions@reprobel.be or vragen@reprobel.be or by fax to 02-551 08 85.

In this case please send a fax to 02-551 08 85 or an e-mail to questions@reprobel.be or vragen@reprobel.be mentioning your Reprobel number and including a brief explanation of your reason for rejecting the form. Reprobel will process your comment as rapidly as possible and will correct any possible errors.

That’s possible, but Reprobel does respect the language legislation. A company based in Flanders will therefore not be sent a declaration form in French and vice versa. There are blank forms available in a different language, however.

Report it by e-mail (to questions@reprobel.be or to vragen@reprobel.be) or by fax (02-551 08 85), preferably with proof of the official publication in the Belgian Official Gazette.

Yes, if you make copies of protected works.

Yes. It is possible to file a collective declaration for different companies that fall under your institution, company or management. In that case send us an e-mail (to questions@reprobel.be or vragen@reprobel.be) stating the different enterprise numbers and their respective Reprobel numbers (if your companies already have dossiers with Reprobel). It is also always possible to establish a collective contract. You can request this by sending a mail to contract@reprobel.be.

Then we would advise you to contact the Federation in order to verify that you are included on the list of members for whom there is a contract with Reprobel.

If you have problems completing your online declaration form, you can send an e-mail to online@reprobel.be.

The password is included on the letter that accompanies the declaration, under the address field. If you are unable to find it, you can always request it by sending an e-mail to online@reprobel.be.

Yes. It is possible to establish a contract with Reprobel for a period of maximum three years. It is also possible to obtain a regularisation for past years.

Yes. The equipment levy for authors and publishers is a one-off payment. This payment is taken care of by the manufacturers, importers and the intracommunity purchasers of machines. At Reprobel we refer to this group as equipment levy payers (redevables/bijdrageplichtigen).

The remuneration applies to any device capable of reproducing protected works and is owed on the date on which the devices come onto the market in Belgium (for example in order to be sold, rented or leased). The equipment levy is a cost that the party liable to pay contributions can calculate into the final price of the machine.

The equipment levy is therefore payable regardless of the number of copies of protected works that will be made with these devices and is payable only once for the entire lifespan of the device.

The rates are established in the Royal Decree of 30 October 1997, in implementation of the Copyright Act of 30 June 1994. The rates are adjusted to the economic index annually. The law and the other applicable regulatory texts are available on this website, under LEGISLATION.

In exchange for the legal permission to reproduce someone else’s work for internal and didactic use, you are required to pay remuneration.

This is not a tax but a flat-rate compensation for the hundreds of millions of copies of protected works (such as novels, textbooks, newspapers, magazines, plans, photographs, or sheet music) which are made each year in this country. Systems of this kind have existed, often for a much longer time than in Belgium, in other European countries such as Germany, Spain and Austria.

Because it is a question of remuneration and not tax, VAT must be charged.

For scanners that are only capable of scanning, the equipment levy may not exceed 2% of the selling price. An example: a flatbed scanner with 600-1199 dpi costs 1,000 euros. In 2009 the flat rate for a flatbed scanner with 600-1199 dpi was 92.28 euros. At 2% of the selling price (in this case 20 euros) the result is considerably cheaper. That is why the percentage of 2% is applied to scanners. This rule does not apply to multifunctional devices.

No. In addition to the manufacturers and importers liable to pay a one-off equipment levy, professional users pay a remuneration that is proportionate to the number of copies that they make of protected works. That is the operator levy. The two types of remuneration complement one another.

No. The reprography remuneration compensates for the option that the legislators offer users to reproduce copyright protected works under certain conditions without having to obtain permission in advance from the rights holder.

Reprobel is not a public institution. Reprobel is a non-profit society that represents authors and publishers of literary, scientific, educational, photographic and journalistic works. Reprobel is authorised by the government and collects and distributes the reprography rights. The remunerations collected by Reprobel are transferred to the rights holders.

The exemptions and fiscal advantages that the State grants to certain institutions under public international law and to international organisations have nothing to do with the copyrights.

You can recover the equipment levy that you paid for a device with which you are able to reproduce protected works if you later export the device.

In order to do this, complete the document (front and back) that is used as an application for reimbursement for exported reprography devices. You must complete that form each month. The following should also be attached to it:

• the purchase invoices (for all devices for which you are submitting a reimbursement application);
• the sales invoices (of the same devices);
• the transport documents (which are valid as proof of export).

After appointment, Reprobel can send external accountants for an on-site verification.

Reprobel always attempts to settle disagreements and disputes amicably. Only when this is not possible will Reprobel take legal recourse.
Warning: if you do not pay the remuneration owed, you can incur severe penalties: a jail sentence of eight days to two years or fines of 250 euros to 125,000 euros.

In the case of fraud, the federal government service for Finance and the Inspection Department of Economic Affairs can be involved.

The rate for a multifunctional or all-in-one device is the same as for a photocopy machine. In other words, you do not have to add up the rates for all the different functions of the device.

Yes, if you are an author or publisher of works that can be copied on paper.

The definition of author is interpreted broadly, beyond writers of novels and poems. Also considered as authors are: novelists, poets, playwrights, writers of essays, translations, educational or scientific texts, composers, journalists, photographers, illustrators and creators of technical plans.

The definition of publishers is somewhat simpler: anyone who publishes the work of these authors. In other words, this concerns publishers of books, newspapers, magazines, topographical and roadmaps, postcards and photo cards, sheet music, etc.

As an author or publisher, you are entitled to a remuneration if somebody makes copies of your work for private, internal or didactic purposes. You can exercise your right to a remuneration by becoming a member of one of the copyright management companies of Reprobel.

You are not legally compelled to become a member of a copyright management company to receive remunerations for the copying (on paper) of your works. You may also ask Reprobel. You ought to know, though, that it is not necessarily the best solution for you. First, Reprobel appoints a « reference copyright management company » which calculates the amount of your remuneration, which means that you pay twice administrative costs (once to Reprobel and once to the authors or publishers appointed management company). Besides, you do not benefit from the advantages related to membership of a copyright management company. Copyright management companies do indeed much more than simply receive and manage on your behalf the remunerations for reprography and public lending. They also offer an individual service, and in some cases they also collect, manage and distribute other copyrights for you (for instance certain secondary exploitation rights such as representations or digital (re-)use).

Each year in June the general assembly of Reprobel – which consists solely of representatives of rights holders – approves the distribution among the affiliated copyright management companies. From that point onwards, the copyright management companies can pay out the remunerations to their members. An example: in June 2010 the remunerations were distributed that were collected in 2009. Remunerations for 2009 that were only collected in 2010 are distributed starting in June 2011. As you see: it is a transparent and fairly quick payment.

The remunerations that Reprobel collects, are released to the Board of Authors and the Board of Publishers. The total is distributed in two equal parts to the two boards.

At this point, the amounts are paid out to the members of these boards according to the ratios determined by the Minister. These ratios are based on independent research. Furthermore, the weight represented by each society in the categories of works (literature, photography, educational-scientific texts) or of the support (books, newspapers, magazines) plays a logical role.

No. The majority of the collected remunerations go to Belgian authors and publishers. A limited amount goes abroad. Within the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations(IFRRO) Reprobel has established agreements such that remunerations collected abroad can also be transferred to Belgium. The Netherlands and France are the chief foreign partners of Reprobel.

Via a collective management company

As an author or publisher, you are entitled to a public lending remuneration if your books can be borrowed in public libraries. You can exercise your right to a remuneration by becoming a member of one of Reprobel’s copyright management companies.

You are not legally compelled to become a member of a copyright management company to receive remunerations for the copying (on paper) or lending of your works. You may also ask Reprobel. You ought to know, though, that it is not necessarily the best solution for you. First, Reprobel appoints a « reference copyright management company » which calculates the amount of your remuneration, which means that you pay twice administrative costs (once to Reprobel and once to the authors or publishers appointed management company). Besides, you do not benefit from the advantages related to membership of a copyright management company. Copyright management companies do indeed much more than simply receive and manage on your behalf the remunerations for reprography and public lending. They also offer an individual service, and in some cases they also collect, manage and distribute other copyrights for you (for instance certain secondary exploitation rights such as representations or digital (re-)use). 

Via a foreign copyright collection society for foreign authors and publishers

For distribution of the public lending right remunerations to foreign authors Reprobel and the copyright collection society of the country in question must establish a reciprocal agreement.

In Belgium, public lending right is still in an early phase of its development. The Royal Decree that regulates this issue stipulated that each year only 1 euro per adult borrower and 50 eurocents per minor borrower must be paid. Moreover, a borrower who uses multiple libraries only needs to pay once.

in Belgium only the public libraries are liable to pay. That means that scientific and educational lending institutions, and libraries associated with healthcare facilities are exempt.

By virtue of these stipulations, in the borrowing year 2010, for all of Belgium Reprobel collected barely 1.5 million euros. According to the legal ratio, 30% of this goes to publishers’ associations and 70% to authors’ associations.

In Belgium, therefore, we have a long way to go still to reach a reasonable remuneration for the public lending right.

It is true that in 2003 in Flanders, there was a one-time lending subsidy. Dutch language (Belgian and Dutch) authors and translators received a subsidy in anticipation of the introduction of the public lending right remuneration. This lending subsidy was only for literary authors and translators.

Unfortunately, the rates that have been established for the public lending right remuneration since 2004 are considerably lower than the lending subsidy.

No, consultation on-site is not subject to public lending right remunerations.

No, officially recognised institutions for the blind, visually impaired, deaf and hearing impaired are exempted from the public lending right remuneration.

If your school has been established or officially certified by the government, you do not have to pay public lending right remunerations. Educational institutions that have libraries have been exempted.

If your scientific research institution has been established or officially certified by the government, you do not have to pay public lending right remunerations. Scientific institutions with a library have been exempted.

If your healthcare institution has been established or officially certified by the government, you do not have to pay public lending right remunerations. Healthcare institutions with a library have been exempted.

The Royal Decree of 25 April 2004 establishes the amount of the remuneration at 1 euro per year and per adult person and 50 eurocents per minor registered in the lending institution insofar as they have borrowed at least one item within the calendar year.

If someone is registered in more than one library, the amount for this person is payable only once.

Libraries often offer schools, institutions, organisations, groups or associations different formulas in order to be able to borrow a larger number of books. For example, in the case of a teacher who visits the library with his class.

Then there must be a declaration of:

• the number of registered adults and minors who have borrowed at least it one item for the ‘collective group’;

• and the number of registered adults and minors who form part of a ‘collective’ and who have borrowed at least one item with their personal borrower’s card.