PLR in Belgium

Belgium

1. What is Reprobel?

Reprobel is the Belgian CMO and RRO that represents both authors and publishers. It was founded in1994. It administers the legal licenses for reprography and for public lending.

2. What is the legal framework for the PLR legal licence in Belgium?

The legal exception for public lending was introduced in Belgium with the new Copyright and neighbouring rights Act of 30 June 1994 (art. 23) together with the corresponding obligation to pay equitable remuneration (art. 62-64). Although the exception immediately came into force, the practical implementation of the equitable remuneration (mainly tariffs) needed a Royal Decree. The equitable remuneration came into effect 10 years later, by Royal Decree of 25 April 2004.

Reprobel was appointed to administer the public lending right on behalf of all rightsholders of literary, audio and audiovisual works, at first on a temporary basis then definitely, by Royal Decree of 7 April 2005.

3. Who pays for PLR?

The obligation to pay equitable remuneration rests with the public lending institutions.

However, the libraries of some officially recognized or organized institutions have been exempted from the obligation to pay PLR: (i) educational institutions, (ii) scientific research institutions, (iii) healthcare institutions and (iv) institutions for deaf and blind people.

Equitable remuneration may also be paid by a federal entity on behalf of the public lending institution under whose authority it operates, namely the Flemish, the French or the German Communities.

4. What are the tariffs?

The tariffs are set at 1 euro for every adult and 0.5 euro for every child who have registered with a public lending institution provided that they have borrowed at least one item in the course of the year. When a person is registered in more than one library, the remuneration has to be paid only once.

5. How much is being collected?

Collection of fees was delayed pending completion of discussions with the three Belgian Communities (Flemish, French and German speaking federal entities) which all chose to pay on behalf of their own public lending institutions.

As a result PLR owed for 2004 was only paid in 2006 and amounted to Euros 1,285,872. The gap of more than one year between reference year and year of collection has to this day not been filled. In 2007, Reprobel collected Euros 1,531,640 for 2005. In 2008 the remuneration amounted to Euros 1,828,344 for 2006.

In 2006, the French Community decided to abandon the centralized payment of PLR remuneration. Since then Reprobel has been collecting PLR fees directly from each public lending institution in this federal entity.

6. How are PLR payments distributed?

The share of the equitable remuneration that is intended for rightsholders of audio and audiovisual works represents 16.5% of the whole. The distribution of this share is carried out by Auvibel, the collective management organization representing these rightsholders. Payments are made at the rate of 1/3 for each category of rightsholder (authors, producers and artists), as is required by law.

The remainder, namely 83.5%, is paid by Reprobel to its member societies, representing either authors or publishers. The distribution to the individual rightsholders is undertaken by these societies. As required by law, 70% of the equitable remuneration is paid to authors and 30% to publishers.

(For a fuller account by Francis de Braekeleer of the PLR case brought by the European Commission against the Belgian government for improper implementation of the Lending Right Directive, see the Memorandum on the Application and Implementation of European Directive (pdf document).)

(updated january 2010)