The New Kid on the Digital Block: Reprobel

Results declaration campaign companies 2023

Just a few years ago, Reprobel was a somewhat old-fashioned copyright organisation that mainly collected remunerations on photocopiers. Today, Reprobel is the dynamic global leader in collections per capita in business licensing for copyright on texts and images, ahead of Switzerland and the Nordic countries. Reprobel also has a strong presence on social media. Reprobel's complete makeover is closely linked to the success of the combined licence for companies and public institutions that mainly regulates digital use of protected texts and images. Read all about our remarkable transition here ...

The most important intelligence within companies is still human.

The newspapers and social media are full of articles and posts about artificial intelligence. But the most important intelligence within companies is still human. Belgian companies have made the shift to digitalisation and working from home in recent years. The flow of information never stops, and there is massive digital copying , distribution and sharing via mail, chat, Teams/Zoom, Whatsapp, networks, websites and social media .... It often involves copyrighted works such as professional literature, scientific, educational or legal texts, fiction and non-fiction, press articles, photos, quotes, cartoons or illustrations.

We see the exact same thing at Reprobel: the ratio between companies that take our combined licence with additional digital coverage (80,000) and those that still make a more limited reprography declaration for paper reproductions with billing value (10,000) is no less than 8 to 1 in 2023.

More than 80,000 Belgian companies are already covered by Reprobel's combined (digital) licence. That is eight times more than the companies that still do a reprography declaration with value. Among the startups, almost 1 in 2 companies immediately sign up for the digital licence.

The combined licence is clearly enjoyed by businesses of all sizes. 63,000 self-employed and small and medium-sized enterprises signed up for this licence via Reprobel's online declaration portal in the 2023 declaration campaign - 15,000 more than in 2022. 1 in 4 companies that still made a more limited reprography declaration in 2022 switched to the combined licence that also covers digital use of protected work in 2023. Among newly established companies and startups, this is even close to 1 in 2.

A further 17,500 companies are covered through group-level licence agreements (top 500 Belgian companies) or sector agreements with central payment (lawyers, bailiffs, notaries, architects, etc.). The market coverage of the combined licence among the top 500 companies is 98%.

Reprobel has concluded more than 50 sector agreements on the combined licence, with sector organisations in almost all professional sectors.

Copyright is very difficult to arrange individually in the digital world. That is why Reprobel has developed a global licence (the combined licence).

The success of the combined licence should not be that surprising. Companies and self-employed people legally (art. XI.165 Economic Law Code) need a licence for every digital copy, every digital quote, every digital internal or external communication, digital archiving, presentations, scans and prints of protected texts and images. But trying to take care of this individually in the digital world can be a real titanic task: companies usually do not have a good overview of what their employees are doing online, rights holders are often difficult to identify or contact on the internet, licence conditions are untraceable or written in an incomprehensible jargon, source works may be protected but no longer available in commerce, the rights holder may live in a far-off foreign country, ...

With the combined licence, more than 80,000 Belgian companies and self-employed people already arrange their digital and paper use of protected texts and images centrally and easily through Reprobel. For Belgian and an almost worldwide selection of foreign source works. At attractive rates adapted to their sector and workforce.

?? Reprobel: the global number 1 in business licensing in collections per capita.

Business licensing (private and public sector) now accounts for 2/3 of Reprobel's business figure of just over EUR 26 million in 2023. Reprobel is the global No.1 in this domain in collections per capita (and the global No.4 in absolute figures after the US, the UK and France). In just a few years, Reprobel has changed from a somewhat old-fashioned management organisation that only collected legal remunerations, to a modern and dynamic provider of mainly digital licences, with a strong presence on social media.

Those results makes us proud, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Still more than 70,000 companies simply do not declare to Reprobel and often run copyright risks, especially in the digital world. As a result, Belgian authors and publishers miss out on significant rights revenue.

What exactly does Reprobel do?

Reprobel is a cooperative for the management of copyright of Belgian authors and publishers. All remunerations collected by Reprobel go to the rights holders after deduction of our management costs. In 2022, Reprobel's management costs amounted to less than half of the legal maximum. Since its launch, Reprobel has already distributed more than 437 million EUR, mainly to more than 60,000 Belgian authors and more than 400 Belgian publishers, in all genres and from large to small. 90% of the remunerations distributed go to Belgian rights holders, the rest to Reprobel's foreign partners whose works are in its vast repertoire. Reprobel thus helps to ensure that our authors receive a fair remuneration for the use of their works, also in the digital world, and to ensure that publishers can invest in innovative content, so professional users can continue to enjoy a rich and diverse range of high-quality source works. Reprobel is Made in Belgium and all about Fair P(l)ay. In 2022, Reprobel collected and distributed approximately EUR 26 million. You can read more in our annual report 2022. Reprobel operates under the control of the Ministry of Economy, which actively monitors its rates, collections and distributions.