"Not profit for profit's sake, but a fair remuneration for authors and publishers, even in today's fast-changing digital world."
30 years of REPROBEL?: short interview with CEO Jean-Paul Langhoor-Beitia
This year, copyright management organisation Reprobel celebrates its 30th anniversary. A milestone for the organisation and for Belgian copyright. Reprobel is the central cooperative of Belgian authors and publishers. Reprobel collects and distributes copyright, under the supervision of the FPS Economy, for the professional use of texts and images in all genres, such as specialist literature, educational and scientific works, fiction and non-fiction, comics, press articles, photographs, illustrations and cartoons.?
Reprobel has undergone a profound transition in recent years, which has also been noticed abroad. In barely a few years, it has grown from a somewhat outdated organisation that only collected reprography remunerations for photocopies to the dynamic world leader in business licensing in collections per capita via the digital licence bizili by Reprobel for companies and public institutions. Since its launch, Reprobel has already distributed almost half a billion euros to rights holders through its 15 member management companies. Reprobel therefore remains an indispensable link for the rights management of tens of thousands of Belgian authors and publishers, and a true cornerstone of the Belgian creative sector.
CEO Jean-Paul Langhoor-Beitia looks back on Reprobel's digital transition and looks forward hopefully to the future, despite the rapid, technological evolution.
Reprobel has had an extraordinary journey in those 30 years, right?
Absolutely! Look, 30 years is quite something. I could tell you a long story here, because over 30 years, there is quite a lot to tell, with ups and downs. However, two things stand out for me.
One: we have already distributed almost half a billion euros to authors and publishers, with 90% of the amounts distributed staying in Belgium. That says enough about our importance for the Belgian creative and cultural sector. Belgium is a small country with three official languages and much larger neighbouring countires. Not every author is Tom Lanoye or Amélie Nothomb. So we really do make a difference with Reprobel.
Two: in recent years we have become a global benchmark with our digital licence bizili by Reprobel for companies and public institutions. More than 80,000 companies and institutions already benefit from the legal security, ease of use and administrative simplification of bizili, a world record. With our digital licence, we have 98% market coverage among the top 500 Belgian companies, and almost full market coverage in the public sector. We have also now concluded more than 55 sector agreements on bizili, with sector organisations in almost all professional sectors. A real community has thus emerged around bizili, which we intend to expand in the coming years. We are putting maximum effort into communication and social media for this purpose. Business licensing in the private and public sector now accounts for 2/3 of our global collections.
"Reprobel has become a global benchmark with our digital licence bizili for enterprises and public institutions."
What exactly do you mean by putting maximum effort into communication and social media?
Reprobel does so much more than simply collecting and distributing. We serve more than 200,000 companies and public institutions, but we also collect legal remunerations for education and scientific research and for public lending rights. So we have a big customer reach, and we are putting a megaphone on them to raise awareness on copyright. Copyright is still too often unknown to professional users and to the general public. And unknown makes unloved. We are trying to change that with our theme website www.bizili.be, with our renewed declaration portal and with an improved customer journey. But we also heavily invest in social media, with several posts every week, a podcast in cooperation with Unizo and playful actions such as a copyright pub quiz. Always serious, but often with a small, typically Belgian wink.?
"We have seen the world literally change from a paper world with the photocopier as the central office tool to a digital world of tablets, smartphones and virtual meetings."
The world has not exactly stood still over the past 30 years. How has Reprobel adapted itself?
In those 30 years, we have seen the world literally change from a paper world with the photocopier as the central office tool to a digital world of internet, e-mail, chat, tablets, laptops, smartphones, intranet and virtual meetings. Covid-19 has further accelerated this process. And with generative AI, yet another revolution is already taking place.
For the legal remunerations we collect, we depend on the legislature and the competent minister. The legislative process sometimes takes a long time. But with our digital licence bizili for companies and public institutions, we can respond more quickly. We listen to our customers and we hear what they need as licensing coverage. We try to tailor our licensing product to their concrete needs. For example, digital use of texts and images on the internet is not limited to Belgian works, and certainly not in multinationals. That is why we have all extended our representation agreements with foreign partner organisations to digital use. This allows us to offer a global repertoire for digital use for bizili.
What does this 30th anniversary mean for you personally and for the company's vision for the future?
Our 30th anniversary comes at a crucial time with the relaunch of our combined licence for businesses and public institutions under a new name: bizili by Reprobel. That's b for business, izi for easy and li for licence.
With bizili, we want to make the connection between four links: the digital world, companies and public institutions, copyrighted texts and images, and our tens of thousands of rights holders. Arranging copyright on the internet is extremely complicated for most companies and institutions. We solve that for them, with a handy digital licence - all you can eat within the licence limits, for Belgian and for foreign works. With bizili, by the way, you can still arrange paper reproductions of protected works.
We may have changed radically as an organisation, but our mission has remained the same all these years. No profit for profit's sake, but ensuring that authors and publishers receive a fair remuneration for the professional use of their works, also in today's rapidly changing digital world. At the same time, we want to be a true partner of our companies and institutions, not an anonymous bureaucratic monster.
I am happy to be at the head of an amazing organisation, and to feel and shape our mission every day. To me, a country without a thriving and sustainable creative sector is not a country but a desert. Our tens of thousands of Belgian authors and publishers provide entertainment, beauty, wonder and the best information every day. We are a dam against fake news, and through our quality educational resources, we also shape the generation of tomorrow. And we are quite proud of that.