Good to know! The legal deposit obligation applies to : all publishers of publications appearing in Belgium; all authors of Belgian nationality and domiciled in Belgium whose publications appear abroad.

By “publisher”, the legislation means any natural or legal person who publishes or has published works at his own expense. This includes:

• organisations that publish publications, whether they are professional publishers or occasional publishers, for example a non-profit association or a local history society;
• co-publishers who edit a publication in collaboration with another organisation;
• author-publishers, i.e. authors who publish their own publications at their own expense, with or without the help of a supplier for production or distribution.

By “author” we mean the natural person who has created an original work protected by copyright. More specifically, this may be:

• the (co-)author of a text or screenplay;
• the illustrator;
• the (chief) editor or publishing

Belgian authors living abroad or Belgian translators are not obliged to register their works, but are cordially invited to do so on a voluntary basis.