You are allowed to photocopy from protected books, brochures or journals for in-house information and documentation. In return, the Copyright Act makes a provision for remuneration. This is set in the form of a flat rate based on assumptions about usage. The collective management organisation ProLitteris collects this from businesses and distributes it to the rights owners. An entitlement to remuneration exists if it is you have the facilities to make such copies. It does not matter if you have actually copied the copyright protected material or not.

You are required by law to provide information to ProLitteris (e.g. by completing a notification form). This does not mean, however, that you must subsequently pay remuneration. For example, businesses within the construction industry with fewer than 15 employees do not owe remuneration because user behaviour shows that the amount of copyright protected works they photocopy is minimal. In contrast, law firms are obliged to pay a fee even if they only have one employee.

If you do not submit the information required for the calculation, ProLitteris will make an estimation and issue you a corresponding bill. If this estimation is incorrect and you do not contest it within the time limit, you are required to pay the bill. If you notify ProLitteris of any corrections or objections after the time limit has expired – e.g. that you do not have a photocopier or an internal network – this information will be take into account in future.