"On the second assumption, the author is published by a foreign editor. This editor is obviously not held by the Belgian Law. Unfortunately, the European payment 1408/71 relating to the application of the social security systems to the paid workers, the self-employed persons and the members of their family who move inside the precise Community that the worker residing in a country, even if it works for a foreign company, is subjected to the social right of the country in question. On this assumption, not only the author will have to take itself his 15% of personal contribution, but it could be, moreover, that its social case requires of him to pay itself the employer's share of 35%, substituent thus with its "employer". The author should thus pay approximately 50% of his royalties. On a price with the board of 300 euros always (12.102 BFRS), it would thus keep nothing any more but 150 euros (6.051 BFRS).

"And let us note well that all this relates to ONLY the social security contributions."

There's another wrinkle as well: artists who work for more than one company are exempt from the law, which is causing many to worry that this will serve as an incentive for Belgian publishers not to hire local writers and cartoonists unless they have more than one client. The end result could be both an exodus of talent out of Belgium and a sudden spike in the number of foreign cartoonists taking Belgian cartoonists' jobs. Those that do stay will find themselves under pressure to work on titles for multiple publishers in order to keep the jobs coming. This probably isn't what the Belgian government had in mind....

(Incidentally, howdy. My name's Dirk Deppey, and I'm webmaster for The Comics Journal, a magazine of comics news and criticism. I also run the Journal's official weblog, ¡Journalista!, which covers the comics industry both here and abroad on a daily basis. I do intend to write more review-oriented pieces for Blogcritics, but since Eric was kind enough to let me join this fine collective, I figured I ought to post something before my beard grew much longer.)