Revision of copyright law signed and sealed - replay restrictions off the table

The aim of the revision was to adapt copyright law to the internet age: The Federal Council wanted to better protect the interests of creative artists without criminalizing Internet users.
As interests diverged greatly, he set up the Agur 12 working group, in which cultural professionals, producers, users, consumers and the administration were represented. The amendments to the law that have now been passed are based on their proposals.

Hosting provider in duty

The core of the proposal is the fight against piracy. This is to be carried out by Swiss hosting providers that store content. Already today, providers generally remove content from their servers upon notification if it infringes copyright.

In future, Swiss hosting providers - if they create a particular risk of copyright infringements - will have to do more and ensure that the illegal content is not uploaded again. If they fail to do so, they can be prosecuted under criminal law. In addition, a legal basis will be created to collect IP addresses of copyright infringers.

Longer protection period

The term of protection for music and film creators as well as music and film producers will be extended from fifty to seventy years. Protection for photographs will also be extended.
Today, copyright law only protects photographs if they have an individual character. Professional and amateur photographers can hardly defend themselves against unwanted use of their images. In future, all photographs will be protected.

Remuneration for video-on-demand

The remuneration for filmmakers for video-on-demand use is now collected via the collecting societies. The filmmakers expect higher revenues from collective management.
The video-on-demand remuneration system is limited to films by Swiss producers and films from countries that provide for a collective right to remuneration. In the case of film music, the existing system of voluntary exploitation by a collecting society remains in place.

Lower rates for libraries

Public and publicly accessible libraries will benefit from preferential tariffs. With this regulation, Parliament was reacting to a decision by the Federal Arbitration Commission last December, which the collecting societies had appealed to.

The Arbitration Commission ruled that libraries must also pay a copyright fee for rental if they charge users a flat fee - not just if they charge per book. In return, Parliament has now decided on a preferential rate.

Controversial hotel tax

The last point of contention was whether or not hotels, hospitals and prisons should continue to pay for the use of public works in their rooms. The National Council initially wanted to abolish the levy - primarily to relieve the burden on hotels, which have to pay for TV sets in their rooms.

On Monday, however, it relented and followed the lead of the Council of States. The levy will be retained. Opponents of the abolition had warned of conflicts with international regulations. In addition, the abolition would be at the expense of creative artists.

No ancillary copyright

An ancillary copyright for press publishers was also discussed during the consultations: the operators of social networks and other internet platforms should owe publishers a fee if they make journalistic content accessible.
The EU recently adopted such an ancillary copyright. However, it is still unclear how the individual countries will implement this. Parliament therefore decided in the end to wait and see and not to delay the current revision because of this issue. The law would have to be revised again in the foreseeable future anyway, it said.

Fuss about Replay TV

Parliament also considered and rejected a regulation on replay TV. Many viewers switch to fast-forward during advertising, which means that advertising revenue is lost. The National Council's Legal Affairs Committee therefore wanted to enshrine in law that cable network companies may only allow advertising to be replayed if the TV broadcaster has agreed to this.

However, the proposal fell through. Opponents feared that television broadcasters would not allow advertising to be skipped or would charge fees for this, which would be passed on to consumers.

The Federal Council had originally planned a number of other measures, for example against peer-to-peer networks such as music file-sharing networks. However, these were met with criticism during the consultation process. A total of around 1,200 comments with a volume of 8,000 pages were received. (SDA)