Copyright registration in Belgium. Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe. Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Belgium is one of the six founding countries of the European Union and its capital, Brussels, hosts the official seats of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the European Council, as well as one of two seats of the European Parliament (the other being Strasbourg). Belgium is also a founding member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD, and WTO, and a part of the trilateral Benelux Union and the Schengen Area. Brussels hosts the headquarters of many major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy. It has very high standards of living, quality of life, healthcare, education, and is categorized as “very high” in the Human Development Index. It also ranks as one of the safest or most peaceful countries in the world. Accordingly, many businesses want to enter this market and one of the most important preparations a business needs to take before expanding to this country is to learn the procedure of copyright registration in Belgium.
Copyright in Belgium
Unlike other intellectual property rights such as trademarks, patents, industrial designs, plant varieties, etc., copyright does not need to be registered for protection but will be automatically protected from the time the works are created in a certain material form, regardless of content, quality, form, medium, language, published or unpublished, registered or unregistered.
Accordingly, whether registered or not, the copyright to the work will still be protected. However, copyright registration is still advised because early registration will give the author/owner of the work many advantages in the event of a dispute.
When unauthorized use of work occurs around the world, the owner of a work who has registered copyright in advance will not have to waste time and complicate matters with proving himself/herself to be the legitimate owner of the work.
Thereby, in order to avoid passivity, the owner of the work should make a copyright registration to protect their rights and interests when there is an infringement.
Copyright registration in Belgium
Belgium is a member country of The Berne Convention for Copyright since 1887.
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (the Berne Convention) is an international agreement governing copyright. The agreement was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland, in 1886.
As Belgium is a contracting party of the Berne Convention, any work originating in Belgium will be given the same copyright protection in each of the Berne Convention member countries. The original from Belgium can be that the work is made and published for the first time in this country or if the author of the work is of Belgium ethnicity.
While in most countries, copyright protection is automatic as soon as the work existed in material form, copyright registration in Belgium is critical in order for the copyright owner to obtain evidence of copyright.
Evidence of copyright is extremely important even when copyright is obtained automatically.
When registering, the work – the subject matter of the application gets a date and a time stamp recorded, as well as information about the work and proof of work concept and development. This provides unambiguous proof of authorship and ownership that can’t be denied.
Proof of copyright is essential in an age when the publishing, dissemination, and theft of material is extremely easy with the exposure of the Internet.
If copyright registration is not made, copyright owners will lose a significantly big amount of money and time attempting to fight copyright issues and prove ownership of the original work.
In some cases, they might not win as the burden of legal fees overwhelm them. There might be other reasons such as the pressure from the big organizations and the fact of time-consuming when pursuing the fight.
If the copyright owner has already registered for copyright protection to the IP office, they would get a strong foundation and legal claims even if those situations happen, increasing their chance of pursuing the case and winning in the end.
Documents for copyright registration in Belgium
To register for copyright protection in Belgium, the author of the work needs to prepare the following documents:
- Declaration of copyright registration;
- Two copies of copyrighted work;
- Documents proving the right to apply;
- Written consent of co-authors, if the work has co-authors;
- Written consent of the co-owners, if the copyright is jointly owned;
- Notarized identity card of the author or owner of the work;
- Power of Attorney, if the applicant is an authorized person;
- Notarized copy of the company’s business registration certificate (if the owner is a company).
The copyright law of Belgium
The general rule of copyright in Belgium is detailed in Article XI.166 §1 of the Belgian Code on Economic Law.
According to this article, the work of an author will have the validity throughout that author’s life plus 70 years after his/her death.
If the work has co-authors, the 70 years period will be after the death of the last author.
Copyright owners should also refer to Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights of June 30, 1994, amended by the Law of April 3, 1995 for further details on the copyright law in this country.
You can see a list of Belgium IP firms here.