Reprography

Photocopies are subject to a legal exception to copyright and a specific statutory remuneration determined by law and royal decree (Articles XI.235-239 and XI.318/1-6 of the Economic Law Code and two royal decrees of 5 March 2017 relating to the reprography remuneration for authors and the associated publishers’ remuneration).

If your organisation makes photocopies of copyright-protected texts and images during a reference year, you are required to declare this and pay compensation to Reprobel. Reprobel has been appointed as the sole point of contact for this purpose by royal decree. If you have not made any photocopies of protected works during the reference year, you can submit a “zero declaration” by setting your gross annual volume to zero. Reprobel may check your declaration, and there are legal penalties for late or incorrect declarations.

You submit your reprography declaration for the reference year immediately preceding the declaration year, because you only have an overview of your total photocopy volume at the end of that reference year. This can be done on the basis of the counter readings of your reproduction devices, or on the basis of an objective estimate for devices without a counter reading.

When you file a reprography declaration, you pay a statutory page fee for photocopies of protected works of EUR 0.0554 excluding VAT (VAT 6%) for the author’s and publisher’s fees combined. You will need to make an objective estimate of the percentage of copyright-protected works in the gross volume of photocopies. As a smaller company, you can also opt for a “standardised declaration” for photocopies at a fixed annual fee per employee in FTE: EUR 8, 12 or 20 excluding VAT per reference year, depending on your tariff category.

As part of your reprography declaration, you can also arrange for the printing of copyright-protected texts and images via an additional licence from Reprobel. For this, you pay a page rate of 0.066 euro excluding VAT (VAT 6%). This licence is based on Reprobel’s collection and pricing rules M.2018.001. The method of declaration is similar to the reprography declaration for photocopies (gross volume, percentage of protected work, net volume, zero declaration if applicable), although the percentage of protected work may differ for photocopies and prints.

If your organisation has a paper press review, you must arrange this through Reprobel. You pay the page fee(s) above for both photocopies and prints. In many cases, the percentage of protected work will be 100% for paper press reviews. However, you cannot arrange digital press reviews through Reprobel.

Due to their specific activity, copy and print shops cannot subscribe to bizili by Reprobel. They arrange photocopies and prints of protected texts and images in their company via a specific contractual declaration to Reprobel (Collection and Tariff Rules M.2018.001). Smaller copy shops can pay an annual flat rate per reproduction device, which replaces the volume declaration.

You are free to choose between a reprography declaration and bizili by Reprobel, but you should carefully consider your choice. If you copy or share texts or images that belong to Reprobel’s broad national and international repertoire in your organisation in a digital manner without registering with bizili by Reprobel, you are committing a copyright infringement. This often costs a multiple of the normal licence fee. Digital infringements can be traced, e.g. via a watermark or based on the IP address.

Reprobel has the legal authority to monitor your digital reuse. It can do so through its sworn agents, who can carry out on-site checks and draw up official reports as evidence to the contrary. (Art. XI.263, § 3 of the Economic Law Code). Or a detailed questionnaire, which you are legally obliged to answer (Article XI.261, § 2 of the Economic Law Code).