Music boxes, music-playing toys, etc. 

In Switzerland and Liechtenstein, the legal protection period for musical works runs for 70 years after the author's death. If you intend to record musical works protected by copyright, or have such works recorded, you need a licence from SUISA.

Nearly all authors – in Switzerland and abroad – have entrusted SUISA with the management of their rights in Switzerland and in Liechtenstein. This means that SUISA grants the licence on the rightholder’s behalf to record a work against payment of the corresponding remuneration, which it then passes on to the entitled author or publisher. Accordingly, you must always notify SUISA before producing a recording, or having a recording produced.

Yes. If you intend to record music protected by copyright on audiovisual carriers for uses outside the private sphere, you need permission from the author or rightholder – generally the publisher.  This permission is called a synchronisation licence.

Without such permission, you may not use or reproduce the music. You must obtain the licence in advance, before recording. As a rule, SUISA cannot issue such licences itself.

You do not need a synchronisation licence if you add sound to or reproduce film recordings with music exclusively for private use (e.g. family videos).

You may burn your own CDs and DVDs provided:

• the CD or DVD is only for your own private use, or
• the CD or DVD is a gift for a close friend or relative.

You may not burn your own CDs and DVDs if:

• you intend to sell the CD or DVD without having obtained permission from the record company or a licence from SUISA, or
• the CD or DVD is a gift for someone other than a close friend or relative.

The Copyright Act authorises the free use of a work “in the personal sphere or within a small circle of closely-related persons, such as relatives or friends“.  Case law and literature is strict in this regard: only persons who are actually closely related count. Important: only you, yourself, as a private individual, may do the burning.

Burning is not permitted if it is done on your behalf by a press shop or any other third party for a fee.

Productions must always be registered before the audiovisual recording is produced.

Download the "Application for a sound carrier recording licence", fill it in and send it to SUISA. SUISA must receive the duly completed form at least ten days before the recording date. SUISA will then authorise the pressing plant to produce the sound recordings. Without SUISA’s authorisation, the pressing plant cannot proceed.

To use music for advertising purposes you need the express permission of the author or his publisher.

SUISA cannot grant you this permission but will forward your application.  As this takes some time, SUISA notifies applicants on receipt of their duly completed application form that no sound recordings may be produced until written permission is received.

Authors and publishers may demand remuneration for the licence: such remuneration is additional to the customary fees collected by SUISA.

If you combine music with other works (pictures, dialogues etc.) on the audiovisual recording or make the audiovisual recording for alien purposes (advertising, sales promotions or public relations), you may be going against the author’s principles or intentions.

To protect the author's moral rights, SUISA only issues licences to record music with the authors’ consent – as a rule this is evidenced by the "sync" (synchronisation) licence.

No.  The rental price is not included in the purchase price for a video or DVD.

The Copyright Act provides that only collective management organisations are entitled to collect this remuneration (Article 13(3) CopA). 

There is another reason for the sometimes higher price for rental cassettes: it secures the exclusivity period during which films are not allowed to be broadcast on (free) television.

In Switzerland, if you own a CD or buy a song from an online shop, you are allowed to copy this music for your own use – for example to an MP3 player or on your car radio.  This is permitted by law.

The authors are entitled to a fee, however, because private copies save you the cost of buying another CD or the songs again – but the author incurs a financial loss.

This loss is compensated by the blank media levy – a simple and fair system:

• although the CD or music file containing the song belongs to you, the music still belongs to its authors, i.e. the composers and lyricists.
• Moreover, the blank media levy is not paid by the consumer but by the producer or importer of the storage media (e.g. smartphone, USB stick, hard drive).

The latter builds the royalties into the retail price just like their other production costs and their profit margin.

Fee rates per memory unit have actually been following a downward trend in recent years.

Moreover, the tariff structure takes into account the growing memory size of modern devices: the bigger the memory of a device, the lower the rate per gigabyte. This degressive model ensures a fair balance between the interests of the user and those of the author.