What is covered by the combined licence?

Reprobel’s combined licence is one of the most extensive digital licences in Europe in terms of licence coverage. The licence is technology neutral and specifically designed for home working and digitisation, although it still covers your paper reproductions (printouts, and also photocopies under the statutory exception) of copyright-protected works as well.

The Combined licence covers the following uses of external copyrighted texts and images in Reprobel’s repertoire:

Digital copies and digital quotations of entire works or parts of works from the internet or from a digital medium to a tablet, computer, smartphone, server, …, without limitation in time (for the duration of the licence)

Digital internal sharing within the organisation via intranet, mail, chat, Whatsapp, Zoom, Teams, …, and that without limitation of the number of recipients. By the way, sharing with colleagues abroad within the same group is also allowed, which is handy for multinationals.

Digital external sharing outside the organisation e.g. with customers, suppliers, the government, external advisors via mail, chat, Whatsapp, Zoom, Teams, … – but only if this is done 1-to-1 or 1-to-few (limited group of recipients for a specific project)

Internal presentations, both online and in front of a physically present audience. A few external people may participate in these presentations if necessary, but they must be organised within your organisation and for internal purposes (excluding e.g. external or public conferences)

Scans

Printouts

Photocopies – with the combined licence, you also arrange your legally required reprography declaration to Reprobel for your photocopies of protected works. – Royal Decrees of 5 March 2017).

The combined licence covers the use of almost all relevant Belgian (published) source works but also covers an almost worldwide repertoire. With our licence you can also copy, adopt and share without any headaches e.g. Dutch, French, German, Austrian, Swiss, American, British, Canadian, Australian, Irish, Spanish, Scandinavian, Greek or Polish source works within the license limits and the Reprobel repertoire. The full list of agreements with our foreign partners and the countries to which the licence coverage applies can be found here. A list of our main international repertoire can be found here. The full list of agreements with our foreign partners and the countries covered by the licence coverage can be found here.

However, a limited number of acts are not covered by the combined licence. For these you will need an additional licence if you use externally protected work.

In particular, the combined licence does not cover the following acts:

Publication on a public website or on social media (simply linking to the source work is typically allowed)
Use of protected texts and images for which a separate licence is offered on the market (e.g. legal and scientific databases, photo databases, digital press reviews, structural use of press articles through License2Publish of Copiepresse, e-books)
Use of sheet music / scores (to be arranged through SEMU) – song lyrics do fall under the combined licence
Use of books if more than one chapter or more than 10% is copied, reproduced or shared
One-to-many external distribution such as digital newsletters and promotional actions;
External presentations, e.g. at a conference outside your organisation
Copy shops (for whom a separate licence for paper reproductions of protected work is offered);
All acts that may harm the normal commercial exploitation of the source work;
All works by the Belgian author Hergé (all usages except photocopies of protected works).

A model version of a licence agreement can be found here.