FAQ

Reprobel is the central management company for Belgian authors and publishers. It collects and distributes the statutory fees for reprography (photocopies) in the private and public sectors, for education/scientific research, and for public lending rights. With bizili by Reprobel, it also offers a convenient license for both paper reproductions and the most common forms of (internal) digital reuse of the protected texts and images in its extensive national and international repertoire. Reprobel operates under the supervision of the Control Service of the Management Companies of the FPS Economy, which monitors its license fees and distributions, among other things. More information about Reprobel can be found at www.reprobel.be and in its detailed annual reports. 

Emails and letters from Reprobel are authentic and therefore not spam. They are always signed by the CEO. They also contain sufficient elements to verify their authenticity. Pay close attention to communications from Reprobel, as they apply within a specific legal context.

The annual declaration to Reprobel is required by law for photocopies of copyright-protected texts and images that you have made during the reference year preceding the declaration year (statutory reprography fee). For the most common forms of digital reuse of texts and images in Reprobel’s extensive national and international repertoire, we offer a convenient and centralized additional license: bizili by Reprobel. Carefully consider the choice between the two options (bizili or reprography), as copyright is an intellectual property right and therefore comes with possible checks and sanctions.

No. Reprobel is a cooperative management company of Belgian authors and publishers. All fees collected by Reprobel are distributed (after deduction of its limited administrative costs) among the rights holders. What you pay to Reprobel is therefore a direct contribution to the Belgian creative and information sector, ensuring that authors and publishers receive fair compensation for the large-scale digital and paper reuse of their work. Reprobel fees do not go to the state treasury in any way and are therefore not taxes or duties.

There are more than 1 million companies and self-employed people in Belgium. However, not all of them are equally relevant for a copyright license in relation to text and images. Reprobel makes its own objective selection of approximately 250,000 companies and institutions based on their NACE code and sometimes also their number of employees. As a result, you may receive a letter and another company may not, or vice versa.

No, that is not possible. This is because, in the context of the statutory reprography remuneration (question 2), there is a fundamental annual reporting obligation to Reprobel.

We obtain our customers’ data primarily from their own annual portal declarations or license agreements. Due to our legal mandate in relation to reprography (questions 2 and 5), we also have access to the databases of the RSZ and the KBO. As part of our data quality control, we may obtain additional information from other databases such as Trends Top or Pinakes. Reprobel never shares your data with external parties. Reprobel’s privacy policy (for any personal data) can be found here. 

Certainly. However, if you are not yet registered on these platforms, we will still send you the invoice in PDF format, in accordance with the applicable VAT legislation.

No, that is not possible in principle. A portal declaration to Reprobel is required by law and is therefore a unilateral and binding legal act vis-à-vis Reprobel. When completing the declaration, you will be explicitly asked to legally validate this declaration for your company or institution. In the case of license agreements, credit notes are possible in exceptional cases, but only for practical corrections (such as an incorrect billing address or a missing order number).

If you do not have a copier or printer in your organization, or if you have not made any paper reproductions of protected texts or images in a specific reference year, you can submit a ‘zero declaration’ for this. But please note: such a zero declaration does not say anything about your digital reuse of the works in Reprobel’s extensive national and international repertoire. If you use this repertoire digitally without bizili by Reprobel license coverage, you expose yourself to possible copyright infringements, checks, and sanctions that can amount to a multiple of the normal license fee.

This is not mandatory for genuine management or asset management companies. However, it is required that these are tax vehicles that do not engage in any operational business activities and therefore do not reuse any of the texts and images in Reprobel’s national and international repertoire. It is best to report the existence of such a company via the contact form, so that we can link it to the operational entity in our customer database.

You only pay for bizili by Reprobel for the relevant FTE (employees and/or civil servants) on your own payroll. Reprobel bills external consultants or freelancers separately. However, you do have to pay for outsourced staff, because otherwise they fall between two stools. After all, the company or institution where they are temporarily working externally does not pay for them because they are not on its own payroll.

Do you often work from an external or temporary office space? In that case, that external hub may pay the fee for paper reproductions to Reprobel. However, you must always arrange the digital reuse of protected texts and images in Reprobel’s national and international repertoire yourself. This can be done easily via bizili by Reprobel.

Reprobel writes to approximately 250,000 companies, self-employed persons, non-profit organizations, and government institutions every year. With our limited team (in order to keep our administrative costs as low as possible), we are unfortunately unable to answer customer questions by phone. However, you can submit all your questions using our online contact form. This also enables us to follow up on and answer questions more effectively. Thank you for your understanding.

If you have a complaint about Reprobel (as a user or as a rights holder), you can use the online contact form or send an email to complaints@reprobel.be. We will respond to your complaint as soon as possible, in accordance with the relevant legal provisions.