Like books and other publications, standards whether in paper or digital form are subject to copyright. This means that the 'author' has the necessary guarantees that his intellectual work will not be illegally copied or distributed. After all, copyright infringement means lost revenue for organisations that develop and distribute standards.
NBN uses the sale of standards to fund standardisation activities, as do other national and international standards agencies. In other words, without copyright protection, the overall standards process is jeopardised. Moreover, copyright prevents users from making inappropriate changes to standards.
Without the express written permission of the copyright holder - in this case NBN - it is not allowed to reproduce or publish a standard, including parts of it. When you download the contents of a standard, you may therefore not use text fragments, except for legal exceptions. If you do, you risk legal prosecution and heavy fines.
Some examples:
Want to know how and why NBN uses copyright and intellectual property law? You can read all about it in the guide on copyright law.
The Economic Law Code, Article XI. 189 et seq., provides exceptions to copyright, including:
These exceptions are possible when justified by the pursued nonprofit purpose of the organisation and do not impair the normal exploitation of the work. In these cases, it is not necessary to request permission from NBN to reproduce the work.
In addition, beyond the legal exceptions provided for in Belgian law, NBN has adopted a policy based on the principle of reasonable use, inspired by the Anglo-Saxon "faire use. Fair use is the reproduction of small excerpts of standards and other NBN content for non-commercial purposes. Fair use of a standard or NBN content requires prior permission from NBN. This can be done by completing a form on the NBN Web site. This form clearly states the limits for reasonable use.
Do you want to copy small parts of standards for "reasonable use"? Then you can request permission to do so using this request form.
'Reasonable use' is the reproduction of small excerpts for non-commercial, educational and informational purposes according to specific rules.
