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Federal Act on Copyright and Related Rights

English is not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. This translation is provided for information purposes only and has no legal force.

The Federal Assembly of the Swiss Confederation,

on the basis of Articles 95 and 122 of the Federal Constitution1,2 and having considered the Dispatch of the Federal Council dated 19 June 19893,

decrees:

Title 1 Subject-Matter

Art. 1  

1This Act reg­u­lates:

a.
the pro­tec­tion of au­thors of lit­er­ary and artist­ic works;
b.
the pro­tec­tion of per­formers, pro­du­cers of phono­grams and au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tions and broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tions;
c.
the fed­er­al su­per­vi­sion of the col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions.

2In­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies re­main re­served.

Title 2 Copyright

Chapter 1 Works

Art. 2 Definition of works  

1Works are lit­er­ary and artist­ic in­tel­lec­tu­al cre­ations with in­di­vidu­al char­ac­ter, ir­re­spect­ive of their value or pur­pose.

2They in­clude, in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
lit­er­ary, sci­entif­ic and oth­er lin­guist­ic works;
b.
mu­sic­al works and oth­er acous­tic works;
c.
works of art, in par­tic­u­lar paint­ings, sculp­tures and graph­ic works;
d.
works with sci­entif­ic or tech­nic­al con­tent such as draw­ings, plans, maps or three-di­men­sion­al rep­res­ent­a­tions;
e.
works of ar­chi­tec­ture;
f.
works of ap­plied art;
g.
pho­to­graph­ic, cine­ma­to­graph­ic and oth­er visu­al or au­dio-visu­al works;
h.
cho­reo­graph­ic works and works of mime.

3Com­puter pro­grams are also works.

3bis Pho­to­graph­ic de­pic­tions and de­pic­tions of three-di­men­sion­al ob­jects pro­duced by a pro­cess sim­il­ar to that of pho­to­graphy are con­sidered works, even if they do not have in­di­vidu­al char­ac­ter.1

4Drafts, titles and parts of works, in­so­far as they are in­tel­lec­tu­al cre­ations with an in­di­vidu­al char­ac­ter, are also pro­tec­ted.


1 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Art. 3 Derivative works  

1De­riv­at­ive works are in­tel­lec­tu­al cre­ations with in­di­vidu­al char­ac­ter that are based upon pre-ex­ist­ing works, whereby the in­di­vidu­al char­ac­ter of the lat­ter re­mains iden­ti­fi­able.

2Such works in­clude, in par­tic­u­lar, trans­la­tions as well as au­dio-visu­al and oth­er ad­apt­a­tions.

3De­riv­at­ive works are pro­tec­ted as works in their own right.

4The pro­tec­tion of the works used in the de­riv­at­ive work re­mains re­served.

Art. 4 Collected works  

1Col­lec­tions are pro­tec­ted as works in their own right in­so­far as they are in­tel­lec­tu­al cre­ations with in­di­vidu­al char­ac­ter with re­gard to their se­lec­tion and ar­range­ment.

2Works in­cluded in a col­lec­ted work may be pro­tec­ted in­di­vidu­ally.

Art. 5 Works excluded from protection  

1Copy­right does not pro­tect:

a.
acts, or­din­ances, in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies and oth­er of­fi­cial en­act­ments;
b.
means of pay­ment;
c.
de­cisions, minutes and re­ports is­sued by au­thor­it­ies and pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tions;
d.
pat­ent spe­cific­a­tions and pub­lished pat­ent ap­plic­a­tions.

2Copy­right also does not pro­tect of­fi­cial or leg­ally re­quired col­lec­tions and trans­la­tions of the works re­ferred to in para­graph 1.

Chapter 2 Author

Art. 6 Definition  

The au­thor is the nat­ur­al per­son who has cre­ated the work.

Art. 7 Joint authorship  

1Where two or more per­sons have con­trib­uted as au­thors to the cre­ation of a work, copy­right be­longs to all such per­sons jointly.

2Un­less they have agreed oth­er­wise, they may only use the work with the con­sent of all au­thors; con­sent may not be with­held for reas­ons con­trary to the prin­ciples of good faith.

3Each joint au­thor may in­de­pend­ently bring an ac­tion for in­fringe­ment, but may only ask for re­lief for the be­ne­fit of all.

4Where the in­di­vidu­al con­tri­bu­tions may be sep­ar­ated and there is no agree­ment to the con­trary, each joint au­thor may use his own con­tri­bu­tion in­de­pend­ently provided such use does not im­pair the ex­ploit­a­tion of the joint work.

Art. 8 Presumption of authorship  

1Un­less proven oth­er­wise, the au­thor is the per­son whose name, pseud­onym or dis­tinct­ive sign ap­pears on the cop­ies or the pub­lic­a­tion of the work.

2As long as the au­thor is not named or re­mains un­known in the case of a pseud­onym or a dis­tinct­ive sign, the per­son who is the ed­it­or of the work may ex­er­cise the copy­right. Where such per­son is also not named, the per­son who has pub­lished the work may ex­er­cise the copy­right.

Chapter 3 Scope of Copyright

Section 1 Relationship of the Author to his Work

Art. 9 Recognition of authorship  

1The au­thor has the ex­clus­ive right to his own work and the right to re­cog­ni­tion of his au­thor­ship.

2The au­thor has the ex­clus­ive right to de­cide wheth­er, when, how and un­der what au­thor’s des­ig­na­tion his own work is pub­lished for the first time.

3A work is con­sidered to be pub­lished when it has been made avail­able for the first time by the au­thor, or with his con­sent, to a large num­ber of per­sons not con­sti­tut­ing a private circle as defined in Art­icle 19 para­graph 1 let­ter a.

Art. 10 Use of the work  

1The au­thor has the ex­clus­ive right to de­cide wheth­er, when and how his work is used.

2The au­thor has the right, in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
to pro­duce cop­ies of the work, such as prin­ted mat­ter, phono­grams, au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tions or data car­ri­ers;
b.
to of­fer, trans­fer or oth­er­wise dis­trib­ute cop­ies of the work;
c.1
to re­cite, per­form or present a work, or make it per­cept­ible some­where else or make it avail­able dir­ectly or through any kind of me­di­um in such a way that per­sons may ac­cess it from a place and at a time in­di­vidu­ally chosen by them;
d.
to broad­cast the work by ra­dio, tele­vi­sion or sim­il­ar means, in­clud­ing by wire;
e.
to re­trans­mit works by means of tech­nic­al equip­ment, the pro­vider of which is not the ori­gin­al broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tion, in par­tic­u­lar in­clud­ing by wire;
f.2
to make works made avail­able, broad­cast and re­trans­mit­ted per­cept­ible.

3The au­thor of a com­puter pro­gram also has the ex­clus­ive rent­al right.


1 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).
2 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).

Art. 11 Integrity of the work  

1The au­thor has the ex­clus­ive right to de­cide:

a.
wheth­er, when and how the work may be altered;
b.
wheth­er, when and how the work may be used to cre­ate a de­riv­at­ive work or may be in­cluded in a col­lec­ted work.

2Even where a third party is au­thor­ised by con­tract or law to al­ter the work or to use it to cre­ate a de­riv­at­ive work, the au­thor may op­pose any dis­tor­tion of the work that is a vi­ol­a­tion of his per­son­al rights.

3It is per­miss­ible to use ex­ist­ing works for the cre­ation of par­od­ies or oth­er com­par­able vari­ations on the work.

Section 2 Relationship between Authorship and Ownership of Copies of the Work

Art. 12 Principle of exhaustion  

1Where the au­thor has trans­ferred the rights to a copy of a work or has con­sen­ted to such a trans­fer, these rights may sub­sequently be fur­ther trans­ferred or the copy oth­er­wise dis­trib­uted.

1bisCop­ies of au­dio-visu­al works may not be fur­ther trans­ferred or ren­ted as long as the au­thor is thereby im­paired in ex­er­cising his right of per­form­ance (Art. 10 para. 2 let. c).1

2Where the au­thor has trans­ferred the rights to a com­puter pro­gram or has con­sen­ted to such trans­fer, such a pro­gram may sub­sequently be used or fur­ther trans­ferred.

3Works of ar­chi­tec­ture that have been con­struc­ted may be altered by the own­er; Art­icle 11 para­graph 2 re­mains re­served.


1 In­ser­ted by Art. 36 No 3 of the Film Act of 14 Dec. 2001 (AS 2002 1904; BBl 2000 5429). Amended by No II of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 April 2004 (AS 2004 1385; BBl 2002 2022 5506).

Art. 13 Rental of copies of works  

1Any per­son who rents or oth­er­wise makes avail­able for a fee cop­ies of lit­er­ary or artist­ic works owes re­mu­ner­a­tion to the au­thor.

2No ob­lig­a­tion to pay re­mu­ner­a­tion ex­ists for:

a.
works of ar­chi­tec­ture;
b.
cop­ies of works of ap­plied art;
c.
cop­ies of works ren­ted or lent for a con­trac­tu­ally agreed use of copy­right.

3Claims for re­mu­ner­a­tion may only be as­ser­ted by the ap­proved col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions (Art. 40 and seq.).

4This Art­icle does not ap­ply to com­puter pro­grams. The ex­clus­ive right un­der Art­icle 10 para­graph 3 re­mains re­served.

Art. 13a Making available of audio-visual works  

1Any per­son who law­fully makes an au­dio-visu­al work avail­able in such a way that per­sons may ac­cess it from a place and at a time chosen by them owes re­mu­ner­a­tion to the au­thors who cre­ated the au­dio-visu­al work.

2No re­mu­ner­a­tion is owed if:

a.
the au­thor or their heirs per­son­ally ex­ploit the ex­clus­ive right to mak­ing the work avail­able; or
b.
the au­dio-visu­al work is one of the fol­low­ing:
1.
com­pany pro­file films, in­dus­tri­al films, ad­vert­ising or pro­mo­tion­al films, com­puter games, ser­vices or com­mis­sioned works by broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tions or oth­er works in the field of journ­al­ism that are cre­ated un­der an em­ploy­ment con­tract or that are com­mis­sioned,
2.
archived works of broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tions (Art. 22a),
3.
orphan works (Art. 22b).

3The right to re­mu­ner­a­tion is in­ali­en­able and un­waiv­able and only the au­thors are en­titled to claim it; it sub­sti­tutes any re­mu­ner­a­tion for the con­trac­tu­ally agreed use of the au­dio-visu­al work. It may only be as­ser­ted by the ap­proved col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions.

4Au­thors of an au­dio-visu­al work which was not pro­duced by a per­son dom­i­ciled or with a re­gistered of­fice in Switzer­land only have a right to re­mu­ner­a­tion if the coun­try in which the au­dio-visu­al work was pro­duced also provides for a col­lect­ively man­aged re­mu­ner­a­tion right for au­thors for the mak­ing avail­able of the work.

5This art­icle does not ap­ply to mu­sic con­tained in au­dio-visu­al works. The au­thors of mu­sic­al works have a right to an equit­able share of the pro­ceeds from their col­lect­ively man­aged ex­clus­ive rights.


1 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Art. 14 Author’s right of access and exhibition  

1Any per­son who owns or is in pos­ses­sion of a copy of a work must provide ac­cess thereto to the au­thor to the ex­tent ne­ces­sary for the lat­ter to ex­er­cise the copy­right and in­so­far as no le­git­im­ate in­terest of the own­er pre­cludes such ac­cess.

2The au­thor may re­quire that a copy of the work be lent to him for an ex­hib­i­tion in Switzer­land if an over­rid­ing in­terest can be proven.

3The loan may be sub­ject to the pro­vi­sion of se­cur­ity for the in­tact re­turn of the copy of the work. Where the copy of the work can­not be re­turned in­tact, the au­thor is li­able re­gard­less of fault.

Art. 15 Protection against destruction  

1Where the own­er of an ori­gin­al work of which no fur­ther cop­ies ex­ist has reas­on to as­sume that the au­thor of the work has a le­git­im­ate in­terest in its pre­ser­va­tion, he may not des­troy the work without first of­fer­ing to re­turn it to the au­thor. The own­er may not re­quest more than the ma­ter­i­al value of the work.

2Where it is not pos­sible to re­turn the work, the own­er must make it pos­sible for the au­thor to re­pro­duce the ori­gin­al in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner.

3For works of ar­chi­tec­ture, the au­thor only has the right to pho­to­graph the work and to re­quire that cop­ies of the plans be handed to him at his own ex­pense.

Chapter 4 Assignment of Rights; Debt Enforcement

Art. 16 Assignment of rights  

1Copy­right is as­signable or may be in­her­ited.

2 The as­sign­ment of a right sub­sist­ing in the copy­right does not in­clude the as­sign­ment of oth­er par­tial rights, un­less such was agreed.

3 The as­sign­ment of the own­er­ship of a copy of a work does not in­clude the right to ex­ploit the copy­right, even in the case of an ori­gin­al work.

Art. 17 Rights to computer programs  

Where a com­puter pro­gram has been cre­ated un­der an em­ploy­ment con­tract in the course of dis­char­ging pro­fes­sion­al du­ties or ful­filling con­trac­tu­al ob­lig­a­tions, the em­ploy­er alone shall be en­titled to ex­er­cise the ex­clus­ive rights of use.

Art. 18 Debt enforcement  

The rights re­ferred to in Art­icle 10 para­graphs 2 and 3 and in Art­icle 11 are sub­ject to debt en­force­ment in­so­far as the au­thor has already ex­er­cised them and the work has already been pub­lished with the con­sent of the au­thor.

Chapter 5 Exceptions to Copyright

Art. 19 Private use  

1Pub­lished works may be used for private use. Private use means:

a.
any per­son­al use of a work or use with­in a circle of per­sons closely con­nec­ted to each oth­er, such as re­l­at­ives or friends;
b.
any use of a work by a teach­er and his class for edu­ca­tion­al pur­poses;
c.
the copy­ing of a work in en­ter­prises, pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tions, in­sti­tu­tions, com­mis­sions and sim­il­ar bod­ies for in­tern­al in­form­a­tion or doc­u­ment­a­tion.

2Per­sons en­titled to make cop­ies of a work for private use may also have them made by third parties sub­ject to para­graph 3; lib­rar­ies, oth­er pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions and busi­nesses that make copy­ing ap­par­at­us avail­able to their users are also deemed third parties with­in the mean­ing of this para­graph.1

3The fol­low­ing are not per­mit­ted out­side the private sphere defined in para­graph 1 let­ter a:2

a.
the com­plete or sub­stan­tial copy­ing of a work ob­tain­able com­mer­cially;
b.
the copy­ing of works of art;
c.
the copy­ing of mu­sic­al scores;
d.
the fix­a­tion of re­cit­a­tions, per­form­ances or present­a­tions of a work on blank me­dia.

3bisCop­ies which are made by ac­cess­ing works that are law­fully made avail­able are neither sub­ject to the re­stric­tion of private use un­der this Art­icle nor are they in­cluded in the claims for re­mu­ner­a­tion un­der Art­icle 20.3

4This Art­icle does not ap­ply to com­puter pro­grams.


1 Amended by No I of the FA of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2421; BBl 2006 3389).
2 Amended by No I of the FA of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2421; BBl 2006 3389).
3 In­ser­ted by No 1 of the FA of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2421; BBl 2006 3389).

Art. 20 Remuneration for private use  

1The use of the work with­in a circle of per­sons un­der Art­icle 19 para­graph 1 let­ter a does not give rise to a right of re­mu­ner­a­tion sub­ject to para­graph 3.

2Any per­son who re­pro­duces works in any man­ner for private use un­der Art­icle 19 para­graph 1 let­ter b or let­ter c, or any per­son who does so as a third party un­der Art­icle 19 para­graph 2 owes re­mu­ner­a­tion to the au­thor.

3Any per­son who pro­duces or im­ports blank me­dia suit­able for the fix­a­tion of works owes re­mu­ner­a­tion to the au­thor for the use of the works un­der Art­icle 19.

4Claims for re­mu­ner­a­tion may only be as­ser­ted by the au­thor­ised col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions.

Art. 21 Decoding of computer programs  

1Any per­son who has the right to use a com­puter pro­gram may ob­tain, either per­son­ally or through a third party, ne­ces­sary in­form­a­tion on the in­ter­faces by de­cod­ing the pro­gram code us­ing in­de­pend­ently de­veloped pro­grams.

2The in­ter­face in­form­a­tion ob­tained by de­cod­ing the pro­gram code may only be used for the de­vel­op­ment, main­ten­ance and use of in­ter­op­er­able com­puter pro­grams in­so­far as neither the nor­mal ex­ploit­a­tion of the pro­gram nor the le­git­im­ate in­terests of the own­er of the rights are un­reas­on­ably pre­ju­diced.

Art. 22 Dissemination of broadcast works  

1The right to make broad­cast works per­cept­ible sim­ul­tan­eously and without al­ter­a­tion or to rebroad­cast such works with­in the frame­work of the re­trans­mis­sion of a broad­cast pro­gramme may only be as­ser­ted by the au­thor­ised col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions.

2The re­trans­mis­sion of works by means of tech­nic­al equip­ment that is in­ten­ded to serve a small num­ber of re­ceiv­ers, such as in­stall­a­tions in a mul­tiple-fam­ily dwell­ing or in a res­id­en­tial com­plex, is per­mit­ted.

3This Art­icle does not ap­ply to the rebroad­cast­ing of sub­scrip­tion tele­vi­sion pro­grammes or of pro­grammes that can­not be re­ceived in Switzer­land.

Art. 22a Use of broadcasting organisations’ archived works  

1The fol­low­ing rights to archived works of broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tions’ un­der the Fed­er­al Act of 24 March 20062 on Ra­dio and Tele­vi­sion may only be as­ser­ted by the au­thor­ised col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions, sub­ject to para­graph 3:

a.
the right to broad­cast the un­mod­i­fied com­plete archived work or an ex­cerpt there­of;
b.
the right to make avail­able the un­mod­i­fied com­plete work, or an ex­cerpt there­of, in such a way that per­sons may ac­cess it from a place or at a time in­di­vidu­ally chosen by them;
c.
the re­pro­duc­tion rights ne­ces­sary to ex­er­cise the uses un­der let­ters a and b.

2A broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tions’ archived work means a work fixed on a phono­gram or au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tion which was cre­ated by a broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tion un­der its own ed­it­or­i­al re­spons­ib­il­ity and at its own ex­pense or by a third party at the sole re­quest and ex­pense of the broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tion and which was first broad­cast at least ten years pre­vi­ously. In the event that oth­er works or parts of works are in­teg­rated in­to an archived work, para­graph 1 also ap­plies to the as­ser­tion of rights to this work or par­tial work in­so­far as these do not sig­ni­fic­antly de­term­ine the unique char­ac­ter of the archived works.

3To the ex­tent that the rights un­der para­graph 1 and their re­mu­ner­a­tion are reg­u­lated in a con­tract pri­or to the first broad­cast or with­in ten years there­after, the con­trac­tu­al pro­vi­sions ap­ply ex­clus­ively. Para­graph 1 does not ap­ply to the broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tions' rights un­der Art­icle 37. The broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tions and the third parties in­volved must provide in­form­a­tion re­gard­ing the con­trac­tu­al agree­ment to the col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion upon re­quest.


1 In­ser­ted by No 1 of the FA of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2421; BBl 2006 3389).
2 SR 784.40

Art. 22b Use of orphan works  

1A work is con­sidered to be orphaned if the hold­ers of the rights to the work re­main un­known or can­not be found fol­low­ing an ap­pro­pri­ate re­search ef­fort.

2The rights to the orphan work un­der Art­icle 10 may only be as­ser­ted by au­thor­ised col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions if the work is used on the basis of a copy of a work which:

a.
is con­tained in col­lec­tions held by pub­lic or pub­licly ac­cess­ible lib­rar­ies, edu­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, mu­seums, col­lec­tions and archives or in archive col­lec­tions of broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tions; and
b.
was pro­duced, copied, or made avail­able in Switzer­land, or handed over to an in­sti­tu­tion with­in the mean­ing of let­ter a.

3Orphan works are con­sidered to be pub­lished. If oth­er works or par­tial works are in­teg­rated in­to an orphan work, para­graph 2 also ap­plies to the as­ser­tion of the rights to these works or par­tial works in­so­far as these do not sig­ni­fic­antly de­term­ine the unique char­ac­ter of the archived works.

4The rights hold­ers have a right to re­mu­ner­a­tion for the use of the work. This may not ex­ceed the re­mu­ner­a­tion provided for in the dis­tri­bu­tion reg­u­la­tions of the rel­ev­ant col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion for the use of the work.

5Art­icle 43a ap­plies to the use of a lar­ger num­ber of works on the basis of cop­ies of works from col­lec­tions un­der para­graph 2 let­ter a.

6If no rights hold­ers present them­selves with­in 10 years, the pro­ceeds of ex­ploit­a­tion, by way of derog­a­tion from Art­icle 48 para­graph 2, shall be used in their en­tirety for so­cial wel­fare pur­poses and for the ap­pro­pri­ate pro­mo­tion of cul­ture.


1 In­ser­ted by No 1 of the FA of 5 Oct. 2007. 2007 (AS 2008 2421; BBl 2006 3389). Amended by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Art. 22c Making available broadcast musical works  

1The right to make non-the­at­ric­al works of mu­sic con­tained in a broad­cast avail­able through a ra­dio or tele­vi­sion pro­gramme may only be as­ser­ted by the au­thor­ised col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions if:

a.
the broad­cast was primar­ily pro­duced by the broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tion or at its re­quest;
b.
the broad­cast was ded­ic­ated to a non-mu­sic­al top­ic which took pre­ced­ence over the mu­sic and was an­nounced pri­or to the broad­cast in the usu­al man­ner; and
c.
mak­ing it avail­able does not im­pair the sale of mu­sic on phono­grams or through on­line of­fers by third parties.

2Sub­ject to the re­quire­ments of para­graph 1, the right of re­pro­duc­tion for the pur­pose of mak­ing avail­able may only be as­ser­ted by the au­thor­ised col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions.


1 In­ser­ted by No 1 of the FA of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2421; BBl 2006 3389).

Art. 23 Compulsory licence for the manufacture of phonograms  

1If a mu­sic­al work, with or without lyr­ics, has been fixed on a phono­gram in Switzer­land or abroad and has been offered, trans­ferred or oth­er­wise dis­trib­uted in this form with the per­mis­sion of the au­thor, all man­u­fac­tur­ers of phono­grams with a com­mer­cial es­tab­lish­ment in Switzer­land may also re­quest per­mis­sion from the copy­right own­er to do the same in Switzer­land against re­mu­ner­a­tion.

2The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may waive the re­quire­ment of a com­mer­cial es­tab­lish­ment in Switzer­land in the case of na­tion­als of coun­tries grant­ing re­cipro­city.

Art. 24 Archive and backup copies  

1One copy of a work may be made in or­der to en­sure its pre­ser­va­tion. The ori­gin­al or the copy must be stored in an archive not ac­cess­ible to the gen­er­al pub­lic and be marked as the archive copy.

1bisPub­lic and pub­licly ac­cess­ible lib­rar­ies, edu­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, mu­seums and archives may make those cop­ies of the works re­quired to se­cure and pre­serve their col­lec­tions in­so­far as these cop­ies are not made for fin­an­cial or com­mer­cial gain.1

2Any per­son en­titled to use a com­puter pro­gram may make one backup copy there­of; this right may not be waived by con­tract.


1 In­ser­ted by No 1 of the FA of 5 Oct. 2007 (AS 2008 2421; BBl 2006 3389). Amended by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Art. 24a Temporary copies  

The mak­ing of tem­por­ary cop­ies of a work is per­mit­ted if:

a.
they are tran­si­ent or in­cid­ent­al;
b.
they rep­res­ent an in­teg­ral and es­sen­tial part of a tech­no­lo­gic­al pro­cess;
c.
their sole pur­pose is to en­able a trans­mis­sion of the work in a net­work between third parties by an in­ter­me­di­ary or a law­ful use of the work; and
d.
they have no in­de­pend­ent eco­nom­ic sig­ni­fic­ance.

1 In­ser­ted by No 1 of the FA of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2421; BBl 2006 3389).

Art. 24b Copies for broadcasting purposes  

1If com­mer­cially avail­able phono­grams or au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tions are used for broad­cast­ing pur­poses by broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tions sub­ject to the Fed­er­al Act of 24 March 20062 on Ra­dio and Tele­vi­sion, the rights of re­pro­duc­tion of non-the­at­ric­al mu­sic­al works may only be as­ser­ted by an au­thor­ised col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion.

2Cop­ies pro­duced in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 may neither be trans­ferred nor oth­er­wise dis­trib­uted; they must be pro­duced by the broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tion by means of their own fa­cil­it­ies. They must be des­troyed after they have ful­filled their pur­pose. Art­icle 11 re­mains re­served.


1 In­ser­ted by No 1 of the FA of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2421; BBl 2006 3389).
2 SR 784.40

Art. 24c Use of works by persons with disabilities  

1A work may be re­pro­duced, dis­trib­uted or made avail­able in a format which is ac­cess­ible to people with dis­ab­il­it­ies in­so­far as the work can­not be per­ceived, or can only be per­ceived with dif­fi­culty, in its already pub­lished form.

2Cop­ies un­der para­graph 1 may only be pro­duced, dis­trib­uted or made avail­able for non-com­mer­cial pur­poses, and only for the use of per­sons with dis­ab­il­it­ies.

3Cop­ies un­der para­graph 1 and cop­ies which were pro­duced in ac­cord­ance with a cor­res­pond­ing leg­al lim­it­a­tion or ex­cep­tion in an­oth­er coun­try may be im­por­ted and ex­por­ted if:

a.
they are used ex­clus­ively by per­sons with dis­ab­il­it­ies; and
b.
they are ob­tained by a non-profit or­gan­isa­tion which, as one of its main activ­it­ies, provides ser­vices to per­sons with dis­ab­il­it­ies in the fields of edu­ca­tion, in­struc­tion­al train­ing, ad­apt­ive read­ing or ac­cess to in­form­a­tion.

4The au­thor has the right to re­mu­ner­a­tion for the copy­ing, dis­tri­bu­tion and mak­ing avail­able of a work in a format ac­cess­ible to per­sons with dis­ab­il­it­ies oth­er than in the case of the pro­duc­tion of in­di­vidu­al cop­ies of the work.

5Claims for re­mu­ner­a­tion may only be as­ser­ted by an au­thor­ised col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion.


1 In­ser­ted by No 1 of the FA of 5 Oct. 2007 (AS 2008 2421; BBl 2006 3389). Amended by the An­nex to the FD of 21 June 2019 on the Ad­op­tion of the Mar­rakesh Treaty to Fa­cil­it­ate Ac­cess to Pub­lished Works for Per­sons Who Are Blind, Visu­ally Im­paired or Oth­er­wise Print Dis­abled, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1013; BBl 2018 591).

Art. 24d Use of works for the purposes of scientific research  

1 For the pur­poses of sci­entif­ic re­search, it is per­miss­ible to re­pro­duce a work if the copy­ing is due to the use of a tech­nic­al pro­cess and if the works to be copied can be law­fully ac­cessed.

2 On con­clu­sion of the sci­entif­ic re­search, the cop­ies made in ac­cord­ance with this art­icle may be re­tained for archiv­ing and backup pur­poses.

3 This art­icle does not ap­ply to the copy­ing of com­puter pro­grams.


1 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Art. 24e Inventories  

1 Pub­lic and pub­licly ac­cess­ible lib­rar­ies, edu­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, mu­seums, col­lec­tions and archives may, with­in their in­vent­or­ies that serve the pur­poses of de­scrib­ing and mak­ing their col­lec­tions ac­cess­ible, re­pro­duce short ex­cerpts of the works or cop­ies of works in their col­lec­tions, provided that this does not im­pair the nor­mal ex­ploit­a­tion of the works.

2 The fol­low­ing parts of works, in par­tic­u­lar, are con­sidered short ex­cerpts:

a.
for lit­er­ary, sci­entif­ic and oth­er lin­guist­ic works:
1.
the cov­er as a small-format, low-res­ol­u­tion im­age,
2.
the title,
3.
the frontis­piece,
4.
the table of con­tents and bib­li­o­graphy,
5.
the dust jack­et,
6.
sum­mar­ies of sci­entif­ic works;
b.
for mu­sic­al and oth­er acous­tic works as well as cine­ma­to­graph­ic and oth­er au­dio-visu­al works:
1.
the cov­er as a small-format, low-res­ol­u­tion im­age,
2.
an ex­tract made pub­licly avail­able by the rights hold­ers,
3.
a short ex­tract with a re­duced res­ol­u­tion or in a re­duced format;
c.
for works of art, in par­tic­u­lar paint­ings, sculp­tures and graph­ic works, as well as pho­to­graph­ic and oth­er visu­al works: the over­all view of the work as a small-format, low-res­ol­u­tion im­age.

1 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Art. 25 Quotations  

1Pub­lished works may be quoted if the quo­ta­tion serves as an ex­plan­a­tion, a ref­er­ence or an il­lus­tra­tion, and the ex­tent of the quo­ta­tion is jus­ti­fied for such pur­pose.

2The quo­ta­tion must be des­ig­nated as such and the source giv­en. Where the source in­dic­ates the name of the au­thor, the name must also be cited.

Art. 26 Museum, exhibition and auction catalogues  

A work form­ing part of a col­lec­tion ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic may be re­pro­duced in a cata­logue is­sued by the ad­min­is­trat­ors of the col­lec­tion; the same rule ap­plies to the pub­lic­a­tion of ex­hib­i­tion and auc­tion cata­logues.

Art. 27 Works on premises open to the public  

1A work per­man­ently situ­ated in a place ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic may be de­pic­ted; the de­pic­tion may be offered, trans­ferred, broad­cast or oth­er­wise dis­trib­uted.

2The de­pic­tion may not be three-di­men­sion­al and it may not serve the same pur­pose as the ori­gin­al.

Art. 28 Reporting current events  

1Where it is ne­ces­sary for re­port­ing cur­rent events, the works per­ceived in do­ing so may be fixed, re­pro­duced, presen­ted, broad­cast, dis­trib­uted or oth­er­wise made per­cept­ible.

2For the pur­poses of in­form­a­tion about cur­rent af­fairs, short ex­cerpts from press art­icles or from ra­dio and tele­vi­sion re­ports may be re­pro­duced, dis­trib­uted, broad­cast or re­trans­mit­ted; full ref­er­ence must be made to the rel­ev­ant ex­cerpt as well as the source. Where the source refers to the name of the au­thor, the name must also be cited.

Chapter 6 Term of Protection

Art. 29 In general  

1A work is pro­tec­ted by copy­right as soon as it is cre­ated, ir­re­spect­ive of wheth­er it has been fixed on a phys­ic­al me­di­um.

2Pro­tec­tion ex­pires:

a.
in the case of com­puter pro­grams, 50 years after the death of the au­thor;
abis.1 50 years after pro­duc­tion for pho­to­graph­ic de­pic­tions and de­pic­tions of three-di­men­sion­al ob­jects pro­duced by a pro­cess sim­il­ar to that of pho­to­graphy if the de­pic­tions do not have in­di­vidu­al char­ac­ter;
b.
in the case of all oth­er works, 70 years after the death of the au­thor.

3Where it is has to be as­sumed that the au­thor has been dead for more than 50 or 70 years2 re­spect­ively, pro­tec­tion no longer ap­plies.

4Art­icles 30 and 31 do not ap­ply to pho­to­graph­ic de­pic­tions and de­pic­tions of three-di­men­sion­al ob­jects pro­duced by a pro­cess sim­il­ar to that of pho­to­graphy if the de­pic­tions do not have in­di­vidu­al char­ac­ter.3


1 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).
2 Re­vised by the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee (Art. 58 para. 1 ParlA; SR 171.10).
3 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Art. 30 Joint authorship  

1Where two or more per­sons have par­ti­cip­ated in the cre­ation of a work (Art. 7), pro­tec­tion ex­pires:

a.
in the case of com­puter pro­grams, 50 years after the death of the last sur­viv­ing joint au­thor1;
b.
in the case of all oth­er works, 70 years after the death of the last sur­viv­ing joint au­thor2.

2Where the in­di­vidu­al con­tri­bu­tions may be sep­ar­ated, pro­tec­tion for each con­tri­bu­tion ex­pires 50 or 70 years3 re­spect­ively after the death of the re­spect­ive au­thor.

3In the case of films and oth­er au­dio-visu­al works, the cal­cu­la­tion of the term of pro­tec­tion is based solely on the date of the death of the dir­ect­or.


1 Re­vised by the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee (Art. 58 para. 1 ParlA; SR 171.10).
2 Re­vised by the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee (Art. 58 para. 1 ParlA; SR 171.10).
3 Re­vised by the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee (Art. 58 para. 1 ParlA; SR 171.10).

Art. 31 Unknown authorship  

1Where the au­thor of a work is un­known, pro­tec­tion for that work ex­pires 70 years after it has been pub­lished or, if it has been pub­lished in in­stal­ments, 70 years after the fi­nal in­stal­ment.

2If the iden­tity of the per­son1 who has cre­ated the work be­comes pub­licly known be­fore the ex­piry of the afore­men­tioned term, pro­tec­tion for the work ex­pires:

a.
in the case of com­puter pro­grams, 50 years after the death of the au­thor2;
b.
in the case of all oth­er works, 70 years after the death of the au­thor3.

1 Re­vised by the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee (Art. 58 para. 1 ParlA; SR 171.10).
2 Re­vised by the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee (Art. 58 para. 1 ParlA; SR 171.10).
3 Re­vised by the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee (Art. 58 para. 1 ParlA; SR 171.10).

Art. 32 Calculation  

The term of pro­tec­tion is cal­cu­lated from 31 Decem­ber of the year in which the event de­term­in­ing the cal­cu­la­tion oc­curred.

Title 3 Related Rights

Art. 33 Rights of performers  

1A per­former is any nat­ur­al per­son who per­forms a work or an ex­pres­sion of folk­lore or who par­ti­cip­ates artist­ic­ally in the per­form­ance of such a work.1

2Per­formers have the fol­low­ing ex­clus­ive right in re­spect of their per­form­ance or its fix­a­tion:2

a. 3
to make their per­form­ance per­cept­ible in some place oth­er than that in which it was per­formed, either dir­ectly or through any kind of me­di­um, in such a way that per­sons may ac­cess it from a place and at a time in­di­vidu­ally chosen by them;
b.
to broad­cast their per­form­ance by ra­dio, tele­vi­sion or sim­il­ar meth­od, in­clud­ing by wire, as well as to re­trans­mit the broad­cast per­form­ance by means of tech­nic­al equip­ment, the pro­vider of which is not the ori­gin­al broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tion;
c.
to fix their per­form­ance on blank me­dia and to re­pro­duce such fix­a­tions;
d.
to of­fer, trans­fer or oth­er­wise dis­trib­ute cop­ies of their per­form­ance;
e. 4
to make their per­form­ance per­cept­ible when they are broad­cast, re­trans­mit­ted or made avail­able to the pub­lic.

1 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).
2 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).
3 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).
4 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).

Art. 33a Moral rights of performers  

1Per­formers have the right to be re­cog­nised as such when they per­form a work.

2The pro­tec­tion of per­formers from derog­at­ory treat­ment of their per­form­ances is sub­ject to Art­icles 28–28l of the Swiss Civil Code2.


1 In­ser­ted by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).
2 SR 210

Art. 34 Collective performance  

1Where two or more per­sons have par­ti­cip­ated artist­ic­ally in a per­form­ance, they are jointly en­titled to the re­lated rights un­der Art­icle 7.

2Where per­formers ap­pear as a group un­der a com­mon name, the rep­res­ent­at­ive named by the per­form­ing group shall have the au­thor­ity to as­sert the rights of the mem­bers. In­so­far as the group does not name a rep­res­ent­at­ive, the per­son who pro­duces the per­form­ance or fixes it on blank me­dia, or who broad­casts it has the au­thor­ity to as­sert the rights.

3In the case of a chor­al, or­ches­tral or stage per­form­ance, use of the per­form­ance un­der Art­icle 33 re­quires the con­sent of the fol­low­ing per­sons:

a.
the so­loists;
b.
the con­duct­or;
c.
the dir­ect­or;
d.
the rep­res­ent­at­ive of the per­form­ing group un­der para­graph 2.

4Any per­son who has the right to ex­ploit a per­form­ance on an au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tion is con­sidered to be au­thor­ised to per­mit third parties to make the fixed per­form­ance avail­able in such a way that per­sons may have ac­cess to it from a place and at a time in­di­vidu­ally chosen by them.

5In the ab­sence of the cor­res­pond­ing stat­utory or con­trac­tu­al pro­vi­sions, the re­la­tion­ship between the au­thor­ised per­sons un­der para­graphs 2 and 4 and the per­formers whom they rep­res­ent is gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions on agency without au­thor­ity.


1 Amended by No I of the FA of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2421; BBl 2006 3389).

Art. 35 Right to remuneration for the use of phonograms and audio-visual fixations  

1If com­mer­cially avail­able phono­grams or au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tions are used for the pur­pose of broad­cast­ing, re­trans­mis­sion, pub­lic re­cep­tion (Art­icle 33 para. 2 let. e) or per­form­ance, the per­formers have a right to re­mu­ner­a­tion.

2The pro­du­cer of the me­di­um thus used is en­titled to an equit­able share of the re­mu­ner­a­tion of the per­formers.

3Claims for re­mu­ner­a­tion may only be as­ser­ted by the au­thor­ised col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions.

4For­eign per­formers who are not ha­bitu­ally res­id­ent in Switzer­land only have a right to re­mu­ner­a­tion if the state of which they are a na­tion­al af­fords a cor­res­pond­ing right to Swiss na­tion­als.

Art. 35a Making available of performances in audio-visual works  

1Any per­son who law­fully makes an au­dio-visu­al work avail­able in such a way that per­sons may ac­cess it from a place and at a time chosen by them owes re­mu­ner­a­tion to the per­formers who par­ti­cip­ated in a per­form­ance con­tained in the au­dio-visu­al work.

2No re­mu­ner­a­tion is owed if:

a.
the per­formers or their heirs per­son­ally ex­ploit the ex­clus­ive right; or
b.
the au­dio-visu­al work is one of the fol­low­ing:
1.
com­pany pro­file films, in­dus­tri­al films, ad­vert­ising or pro­mo­tion­al films, com­puter games, mu­sic videos, con­cert re­cord­ings, ser­vices or com­mis­sioned works by broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tions or oth­er works in the field of journ­al­ism that are cre­ated un­der an em­ploy­ment con­tract or that are com­mis­sioned,
2.
archived works of broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tions (Art. 22a),
3.
orphan works (Art. 22b).

3The right to re­mu­ner­a­tion is in­ali­en­able and un­waiv­able and only the per­formers are en­titled to claim it; it sub­sti­tutes any re­mu­ner­a­tion for the con­trac­tu­ally agreed use of the per­form­ance. It may only be as­ser­ted by the ap­proved col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions.

4Per­formers only have a right to re­mu­ner­a­tion for their per­form­ances in an au­dio-visu­al work which was not pro­duced by a per­son dom­i­ciled or with a re­gistered of­fice in Switzer­land, if the coun­try in which the au­dio-visu­al work was pro­duced also provides for a col­lect­ive right to re­mu­ner­a­tion for per­formers for mak­ing the work avail­able.


1 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Art. 36 Rights of phonogram and audio-visual fixation producers  

A pro­du­cer of phono­grams and au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tions has the ex­clus­ive right:

a.
to re­pro­duce the fix­a­tions and to of­fer, trans­fer or oth­er­wise dis­trib­ute the re­pro­duc­tions;
b.
to make the fix­a­tions avail­able through any kind of me­di­um in such a way that per­sons may ac­cess them from a place and at a time in­di­vidu­ally chosen by them.

1 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).

Art. 37 Rights of broadcasting organisations  

A broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tion has the ex­clus­ive right:

a.
to re­trans­mit its broad­casts;
b.
to make its broad­casts per­cept­ible;
c.
to fix its broad­casts on blank me­dia and to re­pro­duce such fix­a­tions;
d.
to of­fer, trans­fer or oth­er­wise dis­trib­ute cop­ies of the fix­a­tions of its broad­cast;
e.1
to make its broad­casts avail­able through any kind of me­di­um in such a way that per­sons may ac­cess them from a place and at a time in­di­vidu­ally chosen by them.

1 In­ser­ted by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).

Art. 38 Assignment of rights, enforcement, and exceptions and limitations to protection  

The pro­vi­sions un­der Art­icle 12 para­graph 1 and Art­icle 13 as well as Chapters 4 and 5 of the Second Title of this Act ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to the rights to which the per­formers, phono­gram and au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tion pro­du­cers and broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tions are en­titled.

Art. 39 Term of protection  

1Pro­tec­tion be­gins with the per­form­ance of the work or of the ex­pres­sion of folk­lore by the per­formers, with the pub­lic­a­tion of the phono­gram or au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tion, or with its pro­duc­tion if it is not pub­lished, it ends after 70 years. Pro­tec­tion of a broad­cast be­gins with its trans­mis­sion; it ends after 50 years or with the trans­mis­sion of the broad­cast; it ends after 50 years.1

1bisThe right to re­cog­ni­tion as a per­former un­der Art­icle 33a para­graph 1 ex­pires on the death of the per­former, but not be­fore the term of pro­tec­tion un­der para­graph 1 ex­pires.2

2The term of pro­tec­tion is cal­cu­lated from 31 Decem­ber of the year in which the event de­term­in­ing the cal­cu­la­tion oc­curred.


1 Amended by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).
2 In­ser­ted by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).

Title 3a Protection of Technological Measures and Rights Management Information

Art. 39a Protection of technological measures  

1Ef­fect­ive tech­no­lo­gic­al meas­ures for the pro­tec­tion of works and oth­er pro­tec­ted sub­ject-mat­ter may not be cir­cum­ven­ted.

2Ef­fect­ive tech­no­lo­gic­al meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 means tech­no­lo­gies and devices such as ac­cess con­trol, copy con­trol, en­cryp­tion, scram­bling and oth­er modi­fic­a­tion mech­an­isms that are in­ten­ded and suit­able for pre­vent­ing or lim­it­ing the un­au­thor­ised use of works and oth­er sub­ject-mat­ter.

3It is un­law­ful to man­u­fac­ture, im­port, of­fer, trans­fer or oth­er­wise dis­trib­ute, rent, give for use, and ad­vert­ise or pos­sess for com­mer­cial pur­poses devices, products or com­pon­ents, or provide ser­vices which:

a.
are the sub­ject-mat­ter of sales pro­mo­tion, ad­vert­ising or mar­ket­ing with the goal of cir­cum­vent­ing ef­fect­ive tech­no­lo­gic­al meas­ures;
b.
have only a lim­ited com­mer­cially sig­ni­fic­ant pur­pose or use oth­er than the cir­cum­ven­tion of ef­fect­ive tech­no­lo­gic­al meas­ures; or
c.
are primar­ily de­signed, man­u­fac­tured, ad­ap­ted or per­formed for the pur­pose of en­abling or fa­cil­it­at­ing the cir­cum­ven­tion of ef­fect­ive tech­no­lo­gic­al meas­ures.

4The ban on cir­cum­ven­tion may not be en­forced against those per­sons who un­der­take the cir­cum­ven­tion ex­clus­ively for leg­ally per­mit­ted uses.

Art. 39b Monitoring office for technological measures  

1The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall es­tab­lish a mon­it­or­ing of­fice for tech­no­lo­gic­al meas­ures which:

a.
mon­it­ors and re­ports on the ef­fects of tech­no­lo­gic­al meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 39a para­graph 2 on the ex­cep­tions and lim­it­a­tions reg­u­lated by Art­icles 19–28;
b.
acts as a li­ais­on between user and con­sumer groups and the users of tech­no­lo­gic­al meas­ures, and en­cour­ages co­oper­at­ive solu­tions.

2The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the tasks and or­gan­isa­tion of the mon­it­or­ing of­fice. It may provide that meas­ures by the mon­it­or­ing of­fice be taken if pub­lic in­terests pro­tec­ted by the ex­cep­tions and lim­it­a­tions of copy­right so re­quire.

Art. 39c Protection of rights management information  

1Rights man­age­ment in­form­a­tion on copy­right and re­lated rights may not be re­moved or altered.

2Elec­tron­ic in­form­a­tion that iden­ti­fies works and oth­er sub­ject-mat­ter or in­form­a­tion about the terms and con­di­tions of use as well as any num­bers or codes that rep­res­ent such in­form­a­tion are pro­tec­ted when such in­form­a­tion:

a.
is af­fixed to a phono­gram, au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tion or data car­ri­er; or
b.
ap­pears in con­junc­tion with the com­mu­nic­a­tion of a work or oth­er sub­ject-mat­ter without tan­gible me­di­um.

3Works or oth­er sub­ject-mat­ter from which the rights man­age­ment in­form­a­tion con­cern­ing copy­right and re­lated rights has been re­moved or altered may not be copied, im­por­ted, offered, trans­ferred or oth­er­wise dis­trib­uted or broad­cast, made per­cept­ible or made avail­able in this form.

Title 3b Obligation of Providers of Internet Hosting Services which store Information entered by Users

Art. 39d  

1The pro­vider of an in­ter­net host­ing ser­vice which stores in­form­a­tion entered by users is re­quired to pre­vent a work or oth­er pro­tec­ted sub­ject mat­ter from be­ing un­law­fully re­made avail­able to third parties through the use of its ser­vices, if the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments are ful­filled:

a.
The work or oth­er pro­tec­ted sub­ject mat­ter has already been un­law­fully made avail­able to third parties via the same in­ter­net host­ing ser­vice.
b.
The pro­vider has been no­ti­fied of the in­fringe­ment.
c.
The in­ter­net host­ing ser­vice has cre­ated a par­tic­u­lar risk of such in­fringe­ments, spe­cific­ally due to a tech­nic­al mode of op­er­a­tion or an eco­nom­ic ori­ent­a­tion which en­cour­ages in­fringe­ment.

2The pro­vider must take the tech­nic­al and eco­nom­ic meas­ures reas­on­ably ex­pec­ted of them, tak­ing in­to ac­count the risk of such in­fringe­ments.

Title 4 Collective Rights Management Organisations

Chapter 1 Areas Subject to Federal Supervision

Art. 40  

1The fol­low­ing are sub­ject to fed­er­al su­per­vi­sion:

a.
the man­age­ment of ex­clus­ive rights for the per­form­ance and broad­cast­ing of non-the­at­ric­al works of mu­sic and the pro­duc­tion of phono­grams and au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tions of such works;
abis.1
the as­ser­tion of ex­clus­ive rights un­der Art­icles 22, 22a–22c and 24b;
b.2
the as­ser­tion of rights to re­mu­ner­a­tion provided for in this Act un­der Art­icles 13, 13a, 20, 24c, 35 and 35a.

2The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may sub­ject oth­er areas of col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment to fed­er­al su­per­vi­sion if pub­lic in­terest so re­quires.

3The per­son­al ex­ploit­a­tion of ex­clus­ive rights un­der para­graph 1 let­ter a by the au­thor or his heirs is not sub­ject to fed­er­al su­per­vi­sion.


1 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2421; BBl 2006 3389).
2 Amended by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Chapter 2 Authorisation

Art. 41 Principle  

Any per­son who ex­ploits rights which are sub­ject to fed­er­al su­per­vi­sion re­quires au­thor­isa­tion from the Swiss Fed­er­al In­sti­tute of In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­erty (IPI)1.


1 Name in ac­cord­ance with An­nex No 3 of the FA of 21 June 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2017 (AS 2015 3631; BBl 2009 8533). This modi­fic­a­tion has been made throughout the text.

Art. 42 Requirements  

1Au­thor­isa­tion is only giv­en to col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions which:

a.
have been foun­ded un­der Swiss law, are dom­i­ciled in Switzer­land and con­duct their busi­ness from Switzer­land;
b.
have the man­age­ment of copy­right or re­lated rights as their primary pur­pose;
c.
are open to all hold­ers of rights;
d.
grant an ap­pro­pri­ate right of par­ti­cip­a­tion in the de­cisions of the so­ci­ety to au­thors and per­formers;
e.
guar­an­tee com­pli­ance with the stat­utory pro­vi­sions, in par­tic­u­lar in terms of their art­icles of as­so­ci­ation;
f.
give rise to the ex­pect­a­tion of the ef­fect­ive and eco­nom­ic ex­ploit­a­tion of rights.

2 In gen­er­al, au­thor­isa­tion is only gran­ted to a single col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion per cat­egory of work and to a single col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion for re­lated rights.

Art. 43 Term; publication  

1Au­thor­isa­tion is gran­ted for five years; on ex­piry, it may be re­newed for the same term.

2No­tice of the grant­ing, re­new­al, modi­fic­a­tion, with­draw­al and non-re­new­al of such au­thor­isa­tion shall be pub­lished.

Chapter 2a Extended Collective Licences

Art. 43a  

1A col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion may also as­sert the ex­clus­ive rights of rights hold­ers who are not rep­res­en­ted by it for the use of a large num­ber of pub­lished works and pro­tec­ted per­form­ances, and for which as­ser­tion is not sub­ject to the au­thor­isa­tion re­quire­ment un­der Art­icle 41, in­so­far as the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments are ful­filled:

a.
The li­censed use does not im­pair the nor­mal ex­ploit­a­tion of pro­tec­ted works and per­form­ances.
b.
The col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion rep­res­ents a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of rights hold­ers with­in the scope of the li­cence.

2Works loc­ated in col­lec­tions of pub­lic and pub­licly ac­cess­ible lib­rar­ies, archives or oth­er memory in­sti­tu­tions are con­sidered to be pub­lished with­in the mean­ing of para­graph 1.

3The col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions shall make the ex­ten­ded col­lect­ive li­cences known in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner be­fore they come in­to force, in par­tic­u­lar via pub­lic­a­tion in eas­ily ac­cess­ible and trace­able loc­a­tions.

4Rights hold­ers and hold­ers of an ex­clus­ive li­cence may re­quest the col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion which is grant­ing an ex­ten­ded col­lect­ive li­cence to ex­clude their rights from a par­tic­u­lar col­lect­ive li­cence; the ap­plic­ab­il­ity of this col­lect­ive li­cence to the pro­tec­ted works or pro­tec­ted ser­vices in ques­tion ends with the re­ceipt of the opt out no­tice.

5Neither the pro­vi­sions re­gard­ing tar­iffs (Art. 46 and 47) nor the pro­vi­sions re­gard­ing the su­per­vi­sion of tar­iffs (Art. 55–60) ap­ply to ex­ten­ded col­lect­ive li­cences; however, pro­ceeds from these ex­ploit­a­tions must be dis­trib­uted in ac­cord­ance with the prin­ciples of Art­icle 49. Ex­ploit­a­tion un­der this art­icle is sub­ject to the ob­lig­a­tion to provide in­form­a­tion and render ac­count (Art. 50) and the su­per­vi­sion of the con­duct of busi­ness (Art. 52–54).

Chapter 3 Obligations of the Collective Rights Management Organisations

Art. 44 Obligation to administer rights  

The col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions have an ob­lig­a­tion to the hold­ers of rights to as­sert those rights that fall with­in their field of activ­ity.

Art. 45 Principles of the conduct of business  

1The col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions are re­quired to con­duct their busi­ness in ac­cord­ance with prop­er busi­ness man­age­ment prin­ciples.

2They ad­min­is­ter the rights in ac­cord­ance with set rules and with the prin­ciple of equal treat­ment.

3They may not aim to make a profit.

4They shall con­clude, wherever pos­sible, re­cip­roc­al agree­ments with for­eign col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions.

Art. 46 Tariffs  

1The col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions shall draw up tar­iffs for the re­mu­ner­a­tion that they col­lect.

2They ne­go­ti­ate the terms of each tar­iff with the rel­ev­ant as­so­ci­ations of users.

3They shall sub­mit the tar­iffs to the Fed­er­al Ar­bit­ra­tion Com­mis­sion (Art. 55) for ap­prov­al and shall pub­lish the ap­proved tar­iffs.

Art. 47 Joint tariff  

1Where more than one col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion op­er­ates in the same field of use, they shall draw up a joint tar­iff ap­ply­ing uni­form prin­ciples for use of the same works or per­form­ances and shall des­ig­nate one of their num­ber as the joint of­fice for pay­ment.

2The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may en­act fur­ther pro­vi­sions con­cern­ing their col­lab­or­a­tion.

Art. 48 Principles of distribution  

1The col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions are re­quired to draw up dis­tri­bu­tion reg­u­la­tions and to sub­mit them to the IPI for ap­prov­al.1

2With the ap­prov­al of the su­preme or­gan of the rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion, a por­tion of the pro­ceeds may be used for so­cial wel­fare pur­poses and for the ap­pro­pri­ate pro­mo­tion of cul­ture.


1 Amended by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Art. 49 Distribution of the proceeds  

1The col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions must dis­trib­ute the ex­ploit­a­tion pro­ceeds in pro­por­tion to the rev­en­ue de­rived from the in­di­vidu­al works and per­form­ances. They must make all reas­on­able ef­forts to identi­fy those who are en­titled to a share of the pro­ceeds.

2If a dis­tri­bu­tion en­tails un­reas­on­able ex­pense, the col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions may es­tim­ate the ex­tent of rev­en­ue; the es­tim­ates are based on factors that are cap­able of veri­fic­a­tion and are ap­pro­pri­ate.

3The pro­ceeds are di­vided between the ori­gin­al hold­ers of rights and oth­er en­titled per­sons in such a way that an equit­able share goes to the au­thor and the per­former. A dif­fer­ent dis­tri­bu­tion is per­miss­ible where the ex­pense would be un­reas­on­able.

4Con­trac­tu­al agree­ments made by the ori­gin­al hold­ers of rights with third parties take pre­ced­ence over the rules of dis­tri­bu­tion.

Art. 50 Obligation to provide information and render account  

The col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions must provide the IPI1 with all the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments ne­ces­sary for car­ry­ing out its su­per­vis­ory du­ties, and also provide ac­count of its activ­it­ies in an an­nu­al re­port.


1 Name in ac­cord­ance with No1 para. 1 of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591). This modi­fic­a­tion has been made in the pro­vi­sions cited in the AS.

Chapter 4 Obligation to Provide Information to Collective Rights Management Organisations

Art. 51  

1Where it may reas­on­ably be ex­pec­ted, the users of works must provide the col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions with all the ne­ces­sary in­form­a­tion for the de­term­in­a­tion and ap­plic­a­tion of the tar­iffs and for dis­trib­ut­ing the pro­ceeds in a form that cor­res­ponds to the state of the art and al­lows for auto­mat­ic data pro­cessing.1

1bisCol­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions are en­titled to ex­change in­form­a­tion re­ceived un­der this Art­icle with one an­oth­er, in­so­far as this is ne­ces­sary for them to carry out their activ­it­ies.2

2The col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions are ob­liged to pre­serve trade secrets.


1 Amended by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).
2 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Chapter 5 Supervision of the Collective Rights Management Organisations

Section 1 Supervision of the Conduct of Business

Art. 52 Supervisory authority  

The IPI su­per­vises the col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions.


1 Amended by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Art. 53 Extent of supervision  

1The IPI su­per­vises the con­duct of busi­ness of the col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions and en­sures that they com­ply with their ob­lig­a­tions. It ex­am­ines and ap­proves their an­nu­al re­ports.

2It may is­sue dir­ect­ives con­cern­ing the ob­lig­a­tion to provide in­form­a­tion (Art. 50).

3It may also call on agents not be­long­ing to the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion to ex­er­cise its powers; such agents are bound by a duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity.

Art. 54 Measures in cases of failure to comply with obligations  

1If a col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion fails to com­ply with its ob­lig­a­tions, the IPI shall set an ap­pro­pri­ate time lim­it in which the situ­ation must be remedied; if the time lim­it is not com­plied with, the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity shall take ne­ces­sary meas­ures.

2In the event of re­fus­al to com­ply with its de­cisions, the IPI may, after is­su­ing a warn­ing, re­strict or with­draw au­thor­isa­tion.

3The IPI may pub­lish fi­nal de­cisions at the ex­pense of the col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion.

Section 2 Supervision of Tariffs

Art. 55 Federal Arbitration Commission for the Exploitation of Copyrights and Related Rights  

1The Fed­er­al Ar­bit­ra­tion Com­mis­sion for the Ex­ploit­a­tion of Copy­rights and Re­lated Rights (Ar­bit­ra­tion Com­mis­sion) is re­spons­ible for ap­prov­ing the tar­iffs of the col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions (Art. 46).

2Its mem­bers are ap­poin­ted by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil. It reg­u­lates the or­gan­isa­tion and pro­ced­ures of the Ar­bit­ra­tion Com­mis­sion in ac­cord­ance with the Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure Act of 20 Decem­ber 19681.

3The Ar­bit­ra­tion Com­mis­sion ac­cepts no dir­ect­ives in tak­ing its de­cisions; the staff of the Sec­ret­ari­at of the Com­mis­sion are an­swer­able for such activ­ity to the Chair­man of the Com­mis­sion.


Art. 56 Composition of the Arbitration Commission  

1The Ar­bit­ra­tion Com­mis­sion con­sists of a chair­man, two co-ar­bit­rat­ors, two depu­ties as well as ad­di­tion­al ar­bit­rat­ors.

2The ad­di­tion­al ar­bit­rat­ors are nom­in­ated by the col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions and the rel­ev­ant as­so­ci­ations of users of works and per­form­ances.

Art. 57 Quorum for taking decisions  

1 The Ar­bit­ra­tion Com­mis­sion takes its de­cisions with a quor­um of five mem­bers: the chair­man, two co-ar­bit­rat­ors and two ad­di­tion­al ar­bit­rat­ors.

2 The chair­man des­ig­nates the two ad­di­tion­al ar­bit­rat­ors for each item of busi­ness, who must be com­pet­ent in the mat­ter at hand. One of the ad­di­tion­al ar­bit­rat­ors is des­ig­nated on a nom­in­a­tion by the col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions and one on a nom­in­a­tion by the users’ as­so­ci­ations.

3 The fact that a tech­nic­ally com­pet­ent mem­ber be­longs to a col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion or to a users’ as­so­ci­ation does not in it­self con­sti­tute grounds for his re­cus­al.

Art. 58 Administrative supervision  

1The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Justice and Po­lice is the ad­min­is­trat­ive su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity for the Ar­bit­ra­tion Com­mis­sion.

2The Ar­bit­ra­tion Com­mis­sion shall sub­mit an an­nu­al re­port to the De­part­ment on its activ­it­ies.

Art. 59 Approval of the tariffs  

1The Ar­bit­ra­tion Com­mis­sion shall ap­prove the tar­iff sub­mit­ted to it if its struc­ture and in­di­vidu­al pro­vi­sions are fair and reas­on­able.

2It may make modi­fic­a­tions after hear­ing the col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion and the users’ as­so­ci­ations (Art. 46 para. 2) in­volved in the pro­ced­ure.

3Fi­nally ap­proved tar­iffs are bind­ing on the courts.

Art. 60 Principle of equitableness  

1When de­term­in­ing re­mu­ner­a­tion, ac­count is taken of:

a.
the pro­ceeds ob­tained from the use of the work, per­form­ance, phono­gram or au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tion or broad­cast, or al­tern­at­ively the costs in­curred in such use;
b.
the nature and quant­ity of the works, per­form­ances, phono­grams or au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tions or broad­casts used;
c.
the ra­tio of pro­tec­ted to un­pro­tec­ted works, per­form­ances, phono­grams or au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tions or broad­casts as well as to oth­er ser­vices.

2Re­mu­ner­a­tion nor­mally amounts to a max­im­um of ten per cent of the pro­ceeds or costs in­curred from the use of the copy­right and a max­im­um of three per cent for re­lated rights; however, it is de­term­ined in such a way that en­titled per­sons re­ceive equit­able re­mu­ner­a­tion con­di­tioned upon sound fin­an­cial man­age­ment for the ad­min­is­tra­tion of rights.

3The use of the work un­der Art­icle 19 para­graph 1 let­ter b is sub­ject to pref­er­en­tial tar­iffs.

4The rent­al of cop­ies of works in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 13 by pub­lic or pub­licly ac­cess­ible lib­rar­ies is sub­ject to pref­er­en­tial tar­iffs in or­der to safe­guard the in­sti­tu­tion’s man­date to dis­sem­in­ate know­ledge.1


1 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Title 5 Legal Protection

Chapter 1 Protection under Civil Law

Art. 61 Action for declaratory judgment  

Any per­son who can demon­strate a leg­al in­terest may bring an ac­tion for a de­clar­at­ory judg­ment on wheth­er or not a right or leg­al re­la­tion­ship ex­ists un­der this Act.

Art. 62 Actions for performance  

1Any per­son whose copy­right or re­lated right is in­fringed or threatened may re­quest the court:

a.
to pro­hib­it an im­min­ent in­fringe­ment;
b.
to rem­edy an ex­ist­ing in­fringe­ment;
c.1
to re­quire the de­fend­ant to provide in­form­a­tion on the ori­gin and quant­ity of items in his pos­ses­sion that have been un­law­fully man­u­fac­tured or placed on the mar­ket and to name the re­cip­i­ents and dis­close the ex­tent of any dis­tri­bu­tion to com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al cus­tom­ers.

1bisA threat to copy­right or re­lated rights is in par­tic­u­lar present in acts men­tioned in Art­icle 39a para­graphs 1 and 3 and Art­icle 39c para­graphs 1 and 3 and in the case of breach of the ob­lig­a­tions un­der Art­icle 39d.2

2 Ac­tions brought un­der the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions3 for dam­ages, sat­is­fac­tion and hand­ing over of profits in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions con­cern­ing agency without au­thor­ity re­main re­served.

3Any per­son who holds an ex­clus­ive li­cence is en­titled to bring a sep­ar­ate ac­tion un­less this is ex­pressly ex­cluded in the li­cence agree­ment. Any li­censees may join an in­fringe­ment ac­tion in or­der to claim for their own losses.4


1 Amended by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).
2 In­ser­ted by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389). Amended by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).
3 SR 220
4 In­ser­ted by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Art. 63 Forfeiture in civil proceedings  

1The court may or­der the for­feit­ure and sale or de­struc­tion of the un­law­fully man­u­fac­tured items or equip­ment, devices and oth­er means that primar­ily serve their man­u­fac­ture.1

2 The above does not ap­ply to works of ar­chi­tec­ture that have been con­struc­ted.


1 Amended by An­nex No 1 of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Art. 64  

1 Re­pealed by An­nex I No II 9 of the Civil Pro­ced­ure Code of 19 Dec. 2008, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 1739; BBl 2006 7221).

Art. 65 Preliminary measures  

1 Any per­son re­quest­ing pre­lim­in­ary meas­ures may, in par­tic­u­lar, re­quest that the court or­ders meas­ures to:

a. se­cure evid­ence;

b. es­tab­lish the ori­gin of items un­law­fully man­u­fac­tured or placed on the mar­ket;

c. pre­serve the ex­ist­ing state of af­fairs; or

d. pro­vi­sion­ally en­force claims for in­junct­ive re­lief and rem­edy in­fringe­ment.


1 Amended by An­nex I No II 9 of the Civil Pro­ced­ure Code of 19 Dec. 2008, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 1739; BBl 2006 7221).

Art. 66 Publication of the judgment  

The court may or­der, at the re­quest of the suc­cess­ful party, that the judg­ment be pub­lished at the ex­pense of the oth­er party. The court de­term­ines the form and ex­tent of the pub­lic­a­tion.

Art. 66a Notification of judgments  

The courts shall provide the IPI with full of­fi­cial cop­ies of the fi­nal judg­ments free of charge.


1 In­ser­ted by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Chapter 2 Criminal Provisions

Art. 67 Copyright infringement  

1On the com­plaint of the per­son whose rights have been in­fringed, any per­son who wil­fully and un­law­fully com­mits any of the fol­low­ing acts is li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing one year or a mon­et­ary pen­alty:1

a.
uses a work un­der a false des­ig­na­tion or a des­ig­na­tion that dif­fers from that de­cided by the au­thor;
b.
pub­lishes a work;
c.
mod­i­fies a work;
d.
uses a work to cre­ate a de­riv­at­ive work;
e.
pro­duces cop­ies of a work in any man­ner;
f.
of­fers, trans­fers or oth­er­wise dis­trib­utes cop­ies of a work;
g.
re­cites, per­forms or presents a work or makes a work per­cept­ible some­where else either dir­ectly or with the help of any kind of me­di­um;
gbis.2 makes a work avail­able through any kind of me­di­um in such a way that per­sons may ac­cess it from a place and at a time in­di­vidu­ally chosen by them;
h.
broad­casts a work by ra­dio, tele­vi­sion or sim­il­ar means, in­clud­ing by wire, or re­trans­mits a broad­cast work by means of tech­nic­al equip­ment, the op­er­at­or of which is not the ori­gin­al broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tion;
i.3
makes a work made avail­able, a broad­cast work or a re­trans­mit­ted work per­cept­ible;
k.4
re­fuses to no­ti­fy the au­thor­ity con­cerned of the ori­gin and quant­ity of items in his pos­ses­sion that have been un­law­fully man­u­fac­tured or placed on the mar­ket, and to name the re­cip­i­ents and dis­close the ex­tent of any dis­tri­bu­tion to com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al con­sumers;
l.
rents out a com­puter pro­gram.

2Any per­son who has com­mit­ted any act men­tioned in para­graph 1 for com­mer­cial gain shall be pro­sec­uted ex of­fi­cio. The pen­alty is a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing five years or a mon­et­ary pen­alty. The cus­todi­al sen­tence must be com­bined with a mon­et­ary pen­alty.5


1 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).
2 In­ser­ted by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).
3 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).
4 Amended by An­nex No 2 of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2251; BBl 2006 1).
5 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oc­to­ber 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).

Art. 68 Omission of source  

Any per­son who in­ten­tion­ally omits to in­dic­ate the source used where re­quired by stat­ute (Art­icles 25 and 28) and where the au­thor is named therein, to provide the name of the au­thor, is li­able to a fine on the com­plaint of the per­son whose rights have been in­fringed.

Art. 69 Infringement of related rights  

1On the com­plaint of the per­son whose rights have been in­fringed, any per­son who wil­fully and un­law­fully com­mits any of the fol­low­ing acts is li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing one year or a mon­et­ary pen­alty:1

a.
broad­casts the per­form­ance of a work by ra­dio, tele­vi­sion or sim­il­ar means, in­clud­ing by wire;
b.
fixes a per­form­ance of a work on blank me­dia;
c.
of­fers, trans­fers or oth­er­wise dis­trib­utes cop­ies of a per­form­ance of a work;
d.
re­trans­mits a broad­cast per­form­ance of a work by means of tech­nic­al equip­ment, the op­er­at­or of which is not the ori­gin­al broad­cast­ing or­gan­isa­tion;
e.2
makes a per­form­ance of a work made avail­able, a broad­cast per­form­ance of a work or a re­trans­mit­ted per­form­ance of a work per­cept­ible;
ebis.3
uses a per­form­ance of a work un­der a false name or un­der a name oth­er than the artist name des­ig­nated by the per­former;
eter.4
makes a per­form­ance of a work, a phono­gram or au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tion or a broad­cast avail­able through any kind of me­di­um in such a way that per­sons may ac­cess them from a place and at a time in­di­vidu­ally chosen by them;
f.
re­pro­duces a phono­gram or au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tion and of­fers, trans­fers or oth­er­wise dis­trib­utes the re­pro­duc­tions;
g.
re­trans­mits a broad­cast;
h.
fixes a broad­cast on blank me­dia;
i.
re­pro­duces a broad­cast fixed on blank me­dia or dis­trib­utes cop­ies of such re­pro­duc­tions;
k.5
re­fuses to no­ti­fy the re­spons­ible au­thor­ity con­cerned of the ori­gin and quant­ity of the car­ri­ers of a per­form­ance pro­tec­ted un­der Art­icles 33, 36 or 37 in his pos­ses­sion that have been un­law­fully man­u­fac­tured or placed on the mar­ket, or to name the re­cip­i­ents and dis­close the ex­tent of any dis­tri­bu­tion to com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al cus­tom­ers.

2Any per­son who has com­mit­ted any act men­tioned in para­graph 1 for com­mer­cial gain shall be pro­sec­uted ex of­fi­cio. The pen­alty is a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing five years or a mon­et­ary pen­alty. The cus­todi­al sen­tence must be com­bined with a mon­et­ary pen­alty.6


1 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BB1 2006 3389).
2 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).
3 In­ser­ted by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).
4 In­ser­ted by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).
5 Amended by An­nex No 1 of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).
6 Amended by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).

Art. 69a Offences relating to technical protection measures and to rights- management information  

1On the com­plaint of the per­son whose pro­tec­tion has been vi­ol­ated, any per­son who wil­fully and un­law­fully com­mits any of the fol­low­ing acts is li­able to a mon­et­ary pen­alty:

a.
cir­cum­vents ef­fect­ive tech­no­lo­gic­al meas­ures un­der Art­icle 39 para­graph 2 with the in­ten­tion of il­leg­ally us­ing works or oth­er pro­tec­ted sub­ject-mat­ter;
b.
man­u­fac­tures, im­ports, of­fers, trans­fers or oth­er­wise dis­trib­utes, rents, gives or ad­vert­ises for use, or pos­sesses for com­mer­cial pur­poses devices, products or com­pon­ents, or provides ser­vices which:
1.
are the sub­ject-mat­ter of sales pro­mo­tion, ad­vert­ising or mar­ket­ing with the goal of cir­cum­vent­ing ef­fect­ive tech­no­lo­gic­al meas­ures,
2.
have only a lim­ited com­mer­cially sig­ni­fic­ant pur­pose or use oth­er than the cir­cum­ven­tion of ef­fect­ive tech­no­lo­gic­al meas­ures, or
3.
are primar­ily de­signed, man­u­fac­tured, ad­ap­ted or per­formed for the pur­pose of en­abling or fa­cil­it­at­ing the cir­cum­ven­tion of ef­fect­ive tech­no­lo­gic­al meas­ures;
c.
re­moves or al­ters elec­tron­ic rights man­age­ment in­form­a­tion on copy­right and re­lated rights un­der Art­icle 39c para­graph 2;
d.
re­pro­duces, im­ports, of­fers, trans­fers or oth­er­wise dis­trib­utes, broad­casts or makes per­cept­ible or avail­able works or oth­er pro­tec­ted sub­ject-mat­ter on which elec­tron­ic rights man­age­ment in­form­a­tion un­der Art­icles 39c para­graph 2 have been re­moved or altered.

2Any per­son who has com­mit­ted any act men­tioned in para­graph 1 for com­mer­cial gain shall be pro­sec­uted ex of­fi­cio. The pen­alty is a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing one year or a mon­et­ary pen­alty.

3Acts un­der para­graph 1 let­ter c and d are only li­able to pro­sec­u­tion where they are car­ried out by a per­son who is known or, un­der the cir­cum­stances, should be known, for in­stig­at­ing, en­abling, fa­cil­it­at­ing or con­ceal­ing in­fringe­ments of copy­right or re­lated rights.


1 In­ser­ted by Art. 2 of the FD of 5 Oct. 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2497; BBl 2006 3389).

Art. 70 Unauthorised assertion of rights  

Any per­son who, without the re­quired au­thor­isa­tion (Art. 41), as­serts copy­right or re­lated rights, the ex­ploit­a­tion of which is sub­ject to fed­er­al su­per­vi­sion (Art. 40), is li­able to a fine.


1 Amended by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Art. 71 Offences in business activities  

Art­icles 6 and 7 of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 19741 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law ap­ply to of­fences com­mit­ted in busi­ness activ­it­ies by agents or sim­il­ar per­sons.


1 SR 313.0

Art. 72 Forfeiture in criminal proceedings  

Works of ar­chi­tec­ture that have been con­struc­ted may not be for­feited un­der Art­icle 69 of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code2.


1 Amended by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).
2 SR 311.0

Art. 73 Prosecution  

1Pro­sec­u­tion is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the can­tons.

2Of­fences un­der Art­icle 70 are pro­sec­uted and judged by the IPI in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 19741 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law.


1 SR 313.0

Chapter 3 Appeals to the Federal Administrative Court

Art. 74  

1Ap­peals against de­cisions of the IPI and the Ar­bit­ra­tion Com­mis­sion may be brought be­fore the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court.

2The pro­ced­ure for ap­peals be­fore the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court is sub­ject to the Fed­er­al Act of 17 June 20051 on the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court and the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 19682 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure (APA). The fore­go­ing is without pre­ju­dice to the fol­low­ing ex­cep­tions:

a.
Ap­peals against de­cisions of the Ar­bit­ra­tion Com­mis­sion do not have sus­pens­ive ef­fect; the grant­ing of sus­pens­ive ef­fect is ex­cluded in in­di­vidu­al cases.
b.
Art­icle 53 APA is not ap­plic­able.
c.
For fil­ing a re­sponse, the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court sets a time lim­it of a max­im­um 30 days, which can­not be ex­ten­ded.
d.
An ex­change of writ­ten sub­mis­sions un­der Art­icle 57 para­graph 2 APA gen­er­ally does not take place.3

1 SR 173.32
2 SR 172.021
3 Amended by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Chapter 4 Assistance provided by the Federal Customs Administration

Art. 75 Notification of suspicious goods  

1The Fed­er­al Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FCA) is au­thor­ised to no­ti­fy the own­ers of copy­right or re­lated rights as well as the au­thor­ised col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions if there is any sus­pi­cion that goods the dis­tri­bu­tion of which would vi­ol­ate le­gis­la­tion ap­plic­able in Switzer­land on copy­right or re­lated rights may be im­por­ted, ex­por­ted or car­ried in trans­it.2

2In such cases, the FCA3 is au­thor­ised to with­hold the goods for three work­ing days in or­der that the per­sons en­titled may file an ap­plic­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 76 para­graph 1.


1 Amended by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).
2 Amended by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).
3 Name in ac­cord­ance with No1 para. 2 of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591). This modi­fic­a­tion has been made throughout the text.

Art. 76 Application for assistance  

1If own­ers or li­censees of copy­right or re­lated rights en­titled to in­sti­tute pro­ceed­ings or an au­thor­ised col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tion have clear in­dic­a­tions that goods the dis­tri­bu­tion of which would vi­ol­ate le­gis­la­tion ap­plic­able in Switzer­land on copy­right or re­lated rights may im­min­ently be brought in­to or taken out of Swiss cus­toms ter­rit­ory, they may re­quest the FCA in writ­ing to re­fuse the re­lease of the goods.1

2The ap­plic­ants must provide all the rel­ev­ant in­form­a­tion avail­able to them that is re­quired by the FCA in or­der to de­cide on the ap­plic­a­tion. In par­tic­u­lar, they shall provide a pre­cise de­scrip­tion of the goods.

3The FCA makes the fi­nal de­cision on the ap­plic­a­tion. It may charge a fee to cov­er the ad­min­is­trat­ive costs.2


1 Amended by An­nex No 3 of the FA of 21 June 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2017 (AS 2015 3631; BBl 2009 8533).
2 Amended by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Art. 77 Withholding of goods  

1If the FCA, as a res­ult of an ap­plic­a­tion un­der Art­icle 76 para­graph 1, has grounds to sus­pect that cer­tain goods that vi­ol­ate le­gis­la­tion ap­plic­able in Switzer­land on copy­right or re­lated rights may be brought in­to or taken out of Swiss cus­toms ter­rit­ory, then it shall no­ti­fy the ap­plic­ant and the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er of the goods ac­cord­ingly.2

2The FCA shall with­hold the goods for a max­im­um of ten work­ing days from the time of no­ti­fic­a­tion pur­su­ant to para­graph 1 so that the ap­plic­ant may ob­tain pre­lim­in­ary meas­ures.

3Where jus­ti­fied by the cir­cum­stances, it may with­hold the goods for a max­im­um of ten ad­di­tion­al work­ing days.


1 Amended by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).
2 Amended by An­nex No 3 of the FA of 21 June 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2017 (AS 2015 3631; BBl 2009 8533).

Art. 77a Samples  

1At the same time as no­ti­fic­a­tion is made in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 77 para­graph 1, the FCA shall in­form the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er of the goods of the pos­sible han­dover of samples or the op­por­tun­ity to in­spect them in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 77a para­graph 1.

2The de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er may re­quest to be present at the in­spec­tion in or­der to safe­guard his man­u­fac­tur­ing or trade secrets.

3The FCA may re­fuse to hand over samples on a reasoned re­quest from the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er.


1 In­ser­ted by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Art. 77c Application for destruction of the goods  

1When mak­ing an ap­plic­a­tion un­der Art­icle 76 para­graph 1, the ap­plic­ant may sub­mit a writ­ten re­quest for the FCA to des­troy the goods.

2If an ap­plic­a­tion for de­struc­tion is made, the FCA shall no­ti­fy the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er of the goods ac­cord­ingly as part of the no­ti­fic­a­tion made un­der Art­icle 77 para­graph 1.

3The ap­plic­a­tion for de­struc­tion does not res­ult in the time lim­its for ob­tain­ing pre­lim­in­ary meas­ures un­der Art­icle 77 para­graphs 2 and 3 be­ing ex­ten­ded.


1 In­ser­ted by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Art. 77d Consent  

1The de­struc­tion of the goods re­quires the con­sent of the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er.

2Con­sent is deemed to be giv­en if the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er does not ex­pressly ob­ject to the de­struc­tion with­in the time lim­its giv­en un­der Art­icle 77 para­graphs 2 and 3.


1 In­ser­ted by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Art. 77e Evidence  

Be­fore the de­struc­tion of the goods, the FCA shall re­move samples and hold them in safe­keep­ing as evid­ence in any ac­tions for dam­ages.


1 In­ser­ted by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Art. 77f Damages  

1If the de­struc­tion of the goods proves to be un­jus­ti­fied, the ap­plic­ant is ex­clus­ively li­able for the res­ult­ant loss.

2If the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er has giv­en ex­press writ­ten con­sent for the de­struc­tion, no claims for dam­ages may be made against the ap­plic­ant if the de­struc­tion later proves to be un­jus­ti­fied.


1 In­ser­ted by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Art. 77g Costs  

1The de­struc­tion of the goods is car­ried out at the ex­pense of the ap­plic­ant.

2The costs for col­lect­ing and safe­keep­ing samples un­der Art­icle 77e are de­cided by the court in con­nec­tion with the as­sess­ment of claims for dam­ages in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 77f para­graph 1.


1 In­ser­ted by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Art. 77h Accountability statement and damages  

1If it is an­ti­cip­ated that with­hold­ing the goods may lead to a loss be­ing in­curred, the FCA may make the with­hold­ing of the goods de­pend­ent on the ap­plic­ant provid­ing them with an ac­count­ab­il­ity state­ment. As an al­tern­at­ive to this state­ment and where jus­ti­fied by the cir­cum­stances, the FCA may re­quest the ap­plic­ant to provide ap­pro­pri­ate se­cur­ity.

2The ap­plic­ant is li­able for any losses in­curred from with­hold­ing the goods and from col­lect­ing the samples if pre­lim­in­ary meas­ures are not ordered or prove to be un­jus­ti­fied.


1 In­ser­ted by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Title 5a Processing of Personal Data for the purpose of Filing a Criminal Complaint or Reporting a Criminal Offence

Art. 77i  

1The rights hold­ers whose copy­right or re­lated rights are in­fringed may pro­cess per­son­al data in­so­far as this is es­sen­tial for the pur­pose of fil­ing a crim­in­al com­plaint or re­port­ing a crim­in­al of­fence and they may law­fully ac­cess the data. They are also per­mit­ted to use this data for as­sert­ing civil claims to be joined to the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings, or for as­sert­ing claims after the con­clu­sion of crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

2They must dis­close the pur­pose of the data pro­cessing, the type of data pro­cessed and the scope of the data pro­cessing.

3They may not link the per­son­al data un­der para­graph 1 with data col­lec­ted for oth­er pur­poses.

Title 6 Final Provisions

Chapter 1 Implementation and Repeal of Current Legislation

Art. 78 Implementing provisions  

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil en­acts the im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions.

Art. 79 Repeal of federal legislation  

The fol­low­ing are re­pealed:

a.
the Fed­er­al Act of 7 Decem­ber 19221 on Copy­right in Lit­er­ary and Artist­ic Works;
b.
the Fed­er­al Act of 25 Septem­ber 19402 on the Col­lec­tion of Copy­right Roy­al­ties.

1 [BS 2 817; AS 1955 855]
2 [BS 2 834]

Chapter 2 Transitional Provisions

Art. 80 Subject-matter already protected  

1This Act also ap­plies to works, per­form­ances, phono­grams and au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tions and broad­casts cre­ated pri­or to its com­mence­ment.

2Where the use of a work, per­form­ance, phono­gram, au­dio-visu­al fix­a­tion or broad­cast that is un­law­ful un­der this Act was pre­vi­ously per­mit­ted, it may be com­pleted if be­gun pri­or to the com­mence­ment of this Act.

Art. 81 Existing contracts  

1Con­tracts con­cern­ing copy­right or re­lated rights con­cluded pri­or to the com­mence­ment of this Act and de­cisions is­sued on the basis of such con­tracts re­main in ef­fect in ac­cord­ance with the pre­vi­ous law.

2Un­less oth­er­wise agreed, such con­tracts do not ap­ply to rights first cre­ated by this Act.

3Art­icles 13a and 35a do not ap­ply to agree­ments con­cluded be­fore the Amend­ment of 27 Septem­ber 2019 came in­to force.1


1 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 April 2020 (AS 2020 1003; BBl 2018 591).

Art. 81a Licensees’ right of action  

Art­icle 62 para­graph 3 and Art­icle 65 para­graph 5 ap­ply only to li­cence agree­ments that have been con­cluded or con­firmed after the Amend­ment to this Act dated 22 June 2007 comes in­to force.


1 In­ser­ted by An­nex No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2008 (AS 2008 2551; BBl 2006 1).

Art. 82 Authorisation for the exploitation of copyright  

The col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions au­thor­ised un­der the Fed­er­al Act of 25 Septem­ber 19401 on the Col­lec­tion of Copy­right Roy­al­ties must re­quest reau­thor­isa­tion (Art. 41) with­in six months of the com­mence­ment of this Act.


1 [BS 2 834]

Art. 83 Tariffs  

1Tar­iffs of the au­thor­ised col­lect­ive rights man­age­ment or­gan­isa­tions that were ap­proved un­der the pre­vi­ous law re­main in force un­til their term of valid­ity ex­pires.

2Re­mu­ner­a­tion un­der Art­icles 13, 20 and 35 be­comes due on the com­mence­ment of this Act; it may be claimed from the time the cor­res­pond­ing tar­iff is ap­proved.

Chapter 3 Referendum and Commencement

Art. 84  

1This Act is sub­ject to an op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

2The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the com­mence­ment date.

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