Today’s copyright legislation

What exactly are copyrights?

Copyrights are temporarily limited monopolies. They give authors the power to allow or prohibit certain uses of their work. For example, an author can allow the performance or broadcasting of his work for remuneration, thus earning income. Copyright grants an economic right which can be licensed or transferred to others. This right includes the right to record, to perform, present or show, to reproduce, to distribute, to broadcast or rebroadcast and the right to make perceivable.

In addition to the economic right, copyright protects the personal relationship, or moral right, of the author to the work as an expression of his creativity and personality. This moral right protects him from acts that would damage the integrity of his work. In addition, the author can determine whether, when and under which conditions his work shall be made public. Furthermore, he has the right to be named "author." The moral right cannot be transferred to others.

An example of author rights

On the way to work you hum a new melody to yourself. You’ve become an author!

What are related rights?

To make a work audible or visible other people are often involved, such as performers (who interpret the work rather than create it), producers, and broadcasters. These people and businesses have certain related rights of ownership (also referred to as neighboring rights) to their performance, recording or broadcast.

An example of related rights

You perform a piece you composed with a band. You get a recording deal, your song is played on the radio, and your band becomes famous. You even get invited to appear on television shows! Related rights have been created.

Which works are protected?

An overview of Swiss copyright protection

Click on the image to enlarge.

How does one become entitled to copyrights or related rights?

Copyrights are automatic the moment someone has created, performed, broadcasted or recorded a work according to the legal definition. There are no formalities which must be completed in Switzerland, and registration is neither necessary nor possible.

Benefits and limits of copyright

The author decides what to do with his work: He can publish it or keep it for himself. He can earn money with the work or make it available for free. He can collect the royalties himself or he can transfer his economic right to someone else, for example to a publisher, producer or collecting society.

Copyrights, however, are not unlimited. The monopoly is restricted in some areas by the interests of the public at large. This is to guarantee appropriate access to information and cultural goods and thus to create a fair balance in favor of freedom of speech and information. The most important limitation is the term of protection. Protection lasts up to 70 years after the death of the author (50 years for software) or 50 years after the first performance in the case of related rights. Thereafter, the work, or the performance, is freely available to the public. It becomes public domain.

Exceptions to copyright law exist in areas where, up until now, it was impossible to individually monitor usage, such as situations of using contents for personal use. The law allows certain uses for teaching and internal business purposes as well as any uses for personal purposes, including, in particular, private copies.

In compensation for such legally permitted copies of a work, the rights holder receives a royalty payment from the collecting societies under so-called collective management. The amount of the royalty collected by the societies is fixed according to tariff schedules which have been negotiated with the user associations. The tariffs are audited by a price monitor and approved by an independent board. Once collected, the income is distributed to the entitled rights holders according to regulations.

An example of collective management

You make a copy of your favorite CD for a friend. The blank CD (80 minutes) costs 70 cents. Of that, seven cents goes to the collecting society SUISA for royalties. SUISA then pays a fixed amount to the entitled rights holder according to an agreed-upon distribution plan.