What about digital copies ?

Copying and broadcasting digital documents is still illegal in the absence of permission from the entitled parties, except in the following cases provided for by article 22 § 1,4° of the law on copyright.

1. It must involve the fragmentary or full reproduction of articles or plastic art works or those of brief fragments of other works set down on a medium other than graphic or similar
2. The reproduction must be made for purposes of teaching illustration or scientific research
3. The reproduction is carried out for a non-profitmaking purpose
4. It must not be detrimental to the normal commercialisation of the work
In this case, the law provides for a remuneration for the authors and publishers. To date, the enforcing decrees have not yet been issued.

Reprobel is therefore the organ responsible for collecting remunerations for graphic copies made both for private purposes and for educational and scientific research purposes.
The rightful claimants to the digital copy are not only the authors and publishers but also the performers, phonogram producers and the producers of first fixings of films. In addition, authors benefiting from the law for the protection of databases - for the structure of databases - will also receive a remuneration for copies made for the purposes of teaching illustration and scientific research.

The European Parliament and the Council have approved a directive regarding digital copies among other things. This directive 2001/29/CE of 22nd May 2001 relating to the harmonisation of some aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society has not yet been transposed into Belgian law. This transposition must be done by the end of 2002. You can read the text of the European directive by clicking here.
Following the transposition of the directive, the remuneration of authors and publishers will become unavoidable for digital copies, in the context provided for by the law.