What is the Auvibel tax?

The Auvibel tax is a fee levied in Belgium only on devices and carriers on which copyright-protected works can be copied, such as smartphones, tablets, CDs, DVDs, USB sticks and external hard drives. This fee is collected by Auvibel, a collecting society that represents the interests of rightholders.

The Auvibel tax is intended as compensation for making copies of protected works for private use. The idea behind this compensation is that authors and other rights holders should receive reasonable compensation for the use of their works, including when these works are copied for personal use. The proceeds of the Auvibel tax are distributed among the rightholders on the basis of their share in the total repertoire.

The amount of the Auvibel tax differs per device or carrier. For example, the fee for a smartphone is lower than for an external hard drive, because the storage capacity of an external hard drive is much larger and can therefore contain more copies of protected works.