Why do I need the combined licence?
Simple. Watch this video, and everything will become clear immediately.
In today’s digital world, it is very easy to reuse copyright-protected texts and images found on the internet within your company or institution. Some examples. Cutting and pasting copyrighted texts and images. Saving an interesting article from the internet on a smartphone, tablet, computer or server. Sharing this article digitally with colleagues or with a consultant outside the company. A Teams or Zoom meeting showing external, protected texts and images. Incorporating a protected photo from Google or Bing into a PowerPoint presentation. Quickly printing off that interesting report for the train ride. Sharing cartoons or quotes in a professional context.
Millions of texts and images on the internet are protected by copyright, and more are added every day. Just think of professional literature, scientific and educational works, legal information, fiction and non-fiction, song lyrics, poetry, quotes, press articles, photos, cartoons and illustrations.
As a company, public institution or organisation, you are not allowed to digitally copy, scan or print external copyrighted texts and images by law (art. XI.165 Code of Economic Law), nor are you allowed to digitally share, spread, present or communicate them internally or externally without a licence from the rights holder(s). There is no legal exception to copyright for quoting done by companies and public institutions (except recognised educational institutions). So you must also arrange reproductions of parts of protected texts or images on the internet through licensing. There is only a legal exception for photocopies of protected works: you are allowed to make such photocopies, but in order to do so you must make a legally required declaration and pay reprography remuneration to Reprobel.
Trying to arrange these licences individually for every digital use of external protected texts and images by yourself and by each of your employees is often a hopeless task. It might also not be easy for your company or institution to fully map the use of externally protected texts and images for all your employees.
Moreover, on the internet, you rarely find the contact details or even just the name of the rights holder(s) (e.g. think of photos or an article in pdf). It is therefore often unclear whether, where and how you can take out an individual licence for the use of a protected work.
Not to worry, though. With the combined licence, you arrange this with just a few clicks, in less than 10 minutes. You avoid checks and infringements for all actions within the licence limits.
Reprobel’s Combined Licence is one of the most extensive licences in Europe, tailored to homeworking and digitisation. It covers almost all relevant Belgian (published) source works but also virtually worldwide foreign repertoire. Like other copyright licences, the combined licence has a specific scope. In short, the combined licence covers digital copies or quotations from the Internet, internal digital communication within your company or institution, external 1-to-1 or 1-to-few digital communication (e.g. with your legal counsel or accountant), prints, scans, internal presentations, digital archiving and photocopies of copyright-protected texts and images (or parts thereof) in Reprobel’s domestic and foreign repertoire.
However, publication on a public website or on social media and 1-to-many external communications such as newsletters and promotional campaigns, are not covered by the combined licence. The combined licence also does not provide coverage if an individual licence is available on the market for a specific use (e.g. for databases, e-books, structural use of press articles and digital press reviews). If an individual licence is available, you must arrange this directly and additionally with the rightholder or his management company.
Virtually all large Belgian companies, organisations and public institutions, and more than 50,000 self-employed, liberal professionals, small and medium-sized companies, organisations and institutions, already have the combined licence.
Only logical, because the extensive, simple and convenient combined licence offers maximum legal certainty and user-friendliness, even in today’s digital world.