RULES CONCERNING THE USE OF
THE WORK OF HERGÉ ON THE INTERNET

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A. The Work and the rights of Hergé and his legal successors
1. Moulinsart S.A. (162 avenue Louise, 1050 Brussels, Belgium) is the exclusive worldwide owner of all exploitation rights related to the work of Hergé, particularly but not limited to The Adventures of Tintin.
Copyright protects not only the comic albums and the drawings (cases, strips, plates, extra-textual drawings, covers), script ("scenario"), texts, dialogues and gags, but also the settings, the characters and their particularities, the names, titles and imaginary places, onomatopoeia, fonts and other elements of the work of Hergé.
Adaptations of the work of Hergé are also protected by copyright (movies, cartoons, theatre plays, live shows, music, publishing works), as are also all its derived products (sculptures, figurines, books, watches, clothes, games (electronic or not), toys, posters, postcards and other products of the printing and paper mill). Lists mentioned above are not exhaustive.
2. Moulinsart is also the owner of several trademarks registered for various territories, particularly the verbal trademark TINTIN, and the headshot TINTIN & SNOWY.

B. General Principles concerning the use of the work of Hergé:
3. The present Charter specifies, without being exhaustive, rules to be respected for the use of the work of Hergé on the Internet. The following rules are given for indicative purpose only and are to be applied in good faith by the Internet users. The text of the present Charter can be printed.
4. Any use of the work of Hergé or of one of its elements requires the prior and written authorisation of Moulinsart. This authorisation can be refused or be conditioned to the payment of rights. The authorisation must particularly be requested prior to the reproduction, translation, adaptation, communication to the public, lending and renting, sale and offer for sale, downloading for free or costly, in any form, on any support and by any means, from whole or part of the work of Hergé.
An authorisation is also required for the fixation or the recording of protected works on a graphical support, analogical or digital, in a permanent, temporary or short-lived way, for any purpose, for the creation of hyperlinks, for the integration in databases or in computer wallpaper, as well as the control of the use and the destination of the authorised reproductions, and for any on-line posting, particularly on the Internet network but also on Intranet and Extranet networks, including in secured Web sites accessible without distinction by several users.
5. The same principles apply to portraits and representation of Hergé.
6. Any use of whole or part of the work of Hergé must respect the moral rights of the author. Moral rights protect in particular the integrity of the work, the paternity of the author and allow the owner of the rights to control the use of the work.
7. Any use, of the work of Hergé, in whole or in part, on the Internet (websites, chats, servers FTP, electronic mails), otherwise than on the basis of a particular written and prior agreement of Moulinsart, must be done in accordance with the present Charter, and in compliance with all national and international laws applicable to copyright.

C. Regulations to be observed by the Tintinophile Internet user :
1. Prohibition of association to certain subjects:
8. The work of Hergé cannot be associated, out of its context, directly or indirectly, to a philosophical, religious or political speech or statement.
9. The work of Hergé cannot be taken out of its context and associated, directly or indirectly, to contents referring to or dealing with violence, guns, drugs, alcohol and tobacco, sex, child abuse, animal abuse, human trade, prostitution, slavery, torture or inhuman or degrading treatments, and human rights violations.
10. The work of Hergé cannot be taken out of its context and associated, directly or indirectly, to racist, xenophobic, defamatory, slanderous and offensive speeches and position or to speeches and positions that are prejudicial to the honour, the reputation or the privacy of others, nor to any illegal content, contrary to accepted standards of good behaviour or proprieties, or inciting to any similar behaviour.

D. Prohibition of commercial purpose:
11. It is prohibited to reproduce or associate visuals, taken or derived from the work of Hergé, to any kind of advertising, particularly banners, as well as to any other kind of promotion or direct or indirect endorsement of products or services. Any use of the work of Hergé, in whole or in part, for direct or indirect commercial purposes is also prohibited.

E. Quality of the reproductions:
12. The reproduction of visuals taken or derived from the work of Hergé can only take place on websites or information pages dedicated to Hergé or his work and having their own content. These reproductions must be done quantitatively in a reasonable proportion in relation to the content that they are illustrating. Reproductions which quantities (in number and surface) are less then the quantity of the content that they are illustrating, are assumed to be done in a reasonable proportion.
13. Reproduction of more than one strip (composed by a line of successive squares), of plates, pages and covers, requires a specific authorisation. Reproduction of visuals taken or derived from the work of Hergé must be done in a format at least 10% smaller than the size of the original source of reproduction.
14. The resolution of coloured images must be inferior to [600] dpi and the resolution of black and white images or level of grey must be inferior to [300] dpi. No on-line reproductions of visuals taken or derived from the work of Hergé may allow the user to obtain a printing quality equivalent to normal editions of this work.
15. Reproduction of visuals taken or derived from the work of Hergé must be done in compliance with the source of reproduction: colours and lines cannot be modified, drawings cannot be truncated, reversed, cropped or presented as collage, animated, accompanied with sounds or other multimedia elements, mixed with others (editing with other drawings or photographs), nor modified by any other means.

F. Mandatory mentions :
16. Each reproduction of visuals taken or derived from the work of Hergé must be accompanied, in a clear and legible way, with the mention : © Hergé/Moulinsart [year]. This mention can eventually accompany several visuals neighbouring each other.
17. The home page of web sites containing reproductions of visuals taken or derived from the work of Hergé must contain the mention Non Official Site and the following notice , translated in the language of the website if necessary : The work of Hergé is protected by author's right. No use of it can be done without prior and written authorisation of Moulinsart, this last word including a link to the page of the site www.Tintin.com presenting this Charter.

G. Various Prohibitions
18. The album « Tintin and Alph-Art » and the scenarios or projects roughed out by Hergé (particularly La piste indienne, Le thermozéro, Un jour dans un aéroport and Les pilules) constitute uncompleted and non disclosed works (with the exception of "Tintin and Alph-Art" only disclosed under the form of the edition realised in 1986 by Casterman Editions). They can not be adapted, completed or finished.
19. The creation of sequels or adaptations of the work of Hergé is prohibited.
20. The creation, the use or the offer in downloading, even for non commercial purposes, of wallpapers, icons, themes, screensavers, cursors and pointers, skins, fonts taken or derived from the work of Hergé is prohibited. The same applies to games, ringtones and logos for mobile phones, animations (particularly GIF, Flash or Schockwave) or any other elements taken, adapted or derived from the work of Hergé.
21. Visuals communicated in the press files distributed by Moulinsart are for the sole use of the journalist whom Moulinsart has authorised to use them, subject to special conditions of use and they can only be used to illustrate the current events to which the press file refers.
22. On line sale of original drawings from Hergé gives rise to the payment of a resale right, in accordance with applicable laws.
23. The sale, exchange, import or export, the detention for one of these acts, of counterfeited products (i.e. produced or manufactured without the authorisation from Moulinsart or without respecting the conditions imposed by Moulinsart) or the offer to perform such acts is subject to civil and criminal sanctions, in accordance with the applicable laws. Such acts can be disclosed to the following address: [yves.fevrier@moulinsart.be].
24. The use of the names of characters, imaginary places, titles taken from the work of Hergé, his name or pseudonym, or trademarks in a domain name, metatags or in the address or title of a web site requires the specific prior and written authorisation of Moulinsart.
25. The creation and upholding of links towards one or several web sites infringing the present Charter or applicable laws are considered as infringing the present Charter in the same way. In case of doubt about the legitimacy of a site to be linked, a request for information can be sent to [yves.fevrier@moulinsart.be].
26. Parody is authorized by law, under certain conditions. Belgian law allows the caricature, the pastiche or the parody of a work and does not make it possible for the author to oppose it unless he can prove that the caricature, the parody or the pastiche was made with the only aim of harming his person or his honour. The parody, to be allowed, must fulfil a critical function, be an original work, have a goal of mockery of the parodied work, have a humorous tone and borrow only the apparent elements of the work that are strictly necessary to the caricature in order to avoid confusion with or disparage the parodied work.E. Miscellaneous
27. The present Charter may be modified. It is available in French, Dutch and English, the French version having preference in case of divergences. All further information can be requested by electronic mail [yves.fevrier@moulinsart.be] or postal mail from the address of MOULINSART.
28. The present Charter applies to any Internet user, individual or legal entity, factual associations and grouping or organizations without legal personality, whose members are in this case jointly responsible.
29. The present Charter concerns only the use of the work of Hergé on the Internet.
30. The absence of proceedings against the offenders by Moulinsart or the successors of Hergé may not be considered as renunciation, recognition, or acceptance of the offending facts, nor as any authorization to perform them. The present Charter does not impose any obligation on Moulinsart or the successors of Hergé to sue the offenders.
31. The users concerned will be said to be in bad faith if they do not remedy, within eight days of an invitation sent by Moulinsart to remedy a breach of the present Charter or the law, to the noted infringement, except in case of duly motivated dispute. The notices of Moulinsart can be notified by electronic mail.
32. Person responsible of websites which do not comply with the notice of Moulinsart or which contact details do not appear on their web site will be also said to be in bad faith.
33. Moulinsart and the successors of Hergé can in no way be considered liable for the content of websites referring to whole or part of the work of Hergé.
34. Disputes concerning the application of the present Charter and the use of whole or part of the work of Hergé are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of Brussels.

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