The reader compensation for publishers
Educational institutions such as colleges and universities (re)use copyrighted material. In the past, this mainly involved readers or syllabi, but this is increasingly done via digital learning environments (such as Blackboard). All major educational institutions in the Netherlands pay a reader fee for this, intended as compensation for copyright holders. They do this on the basis of the ‘educational exception’ in the Copyright Act, which stipulates that short sections may be copied, as long as a fair compensation is paid for this. Stichting UvO collects these fees and pays them out to rights holders.
From collecting...
Stichting UvO collects fees from small and large educational institutions. Numerous smaller educational institutions collectively purchase the fair fee for ‘short’ parts from us. There is a combined UvO/Reprorecht buy-out arrangement for secondary vocational education (MBO).
In addition, a number of larger educational institutions have entered into an additional Easy Access buy-out agreement. For example, the 36 UASs of the Vereniging Hogescholen may use reproductions of up to 50 pages, provided that this is a maximum of 25% of the original work. For universities affiliated with UNL, a limit of 40 pages and 20% of a work applies. The sums of these agreements are indexed each year based on changes in student numbers and a general price index.
Reuse outside of our standard buy-out agreements requires additional permission and sometimes also additional remuneration. To request permission you may use our webportal.
... to distribution
Stichting UvO believes that publishers are entitled to a fair compensation for the (re)use of their material in education. That is why we continuously conduct research and carry out random samples. We use this to draw up a distribution key to be able to distribute the collected money. This distribution key is revised every three years. Publishers receive individual and ‘title-specific’ payments for separate permission requests.
Publishers of the following categories of work are generally eligible for compensation:
- Scientific books and journals
- Study books and journals
Please forward part of this compensation to your authors
The reader compensation is a gross fee for publishers. Your freelance authors are probably entitled to a portion of this money. You are responsible for this yourself. The amount of the continued payment depends on your own contractual agreements with authors. You may retain any distribution costs incurred, if you have agreed to do so.
You do not have to continue to pay your employees. You also do not have to continue to pay freelance makers of photos, illustrations, sheet music and newspapers: they receive fees through their own organizations (Lira, Pictoright, etc.).
More compensations for publishers
In addition to the reader compensation, there are also other fees for publishers. Our colleagues at Stichting PRO pay out lending rights fees, reproduction rights fees and home copying fees to publishers. In order to protect the collective rights of publishers, we also work together with numerous organisations and other collective management organisations. Want to learn more about the world of collective management?
Register your publisher with UvO
Stichting UvO usually contacts rights holders themselves when their content is used. However, publishers can also register themselves to have Stichting UvO exercise their collective rights. Please contact us to receive our authorisation form ('Volmacht') in English. Almost all publishers in the Netherlands are affiliated with us.