SWITZERLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Peter Schramm, Timmy Pielmeier, Michael Ritscher and Andrea Schäffler, MLL Legal
3.4 Copyright Rights The rights granted to authors are statutory and are outlined in Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the Swiss Copyright Act; they all persist throughout the term of copyright protection. The author’s rights can be divided into two groups: • moral rights (droit moral), which are the rights of the recognition of authorship, the right of publication and the right to oppose distortion of the work; and • (economic) exploitation rights, which are granted universally by an undefined general clause. Articles 10(1) and 11 of the Swiss Copyright Act state that it is the author’s exclusive right to decide if, when and how the work is used. The right is illustrated by a non-exhaustive enumera - tion of examples, including the rights to: • produce copies of the work, such as printed matter, phonograms, audiovisual fixations or data carriers (reproduction right); • offer, transfer or otherwise distribute copies of the work (distribution right); • recite, perform or present a work, or make it perceptible somewhere else or make it avail - able 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 (performance, communication and mak - ing available right); • broadcast the work by radio, television or similar means, including by wire (broadcast - ing right); • retransmit works by means of technical equipment, the provider of which is not the original broadcasting organisation, including in particular by wire (rebroadcasting right);
• make works made available, broadcast and retransmitted perceptible (making perceptible right); and • decide if, when and how the work may be altered and if, when and how the work may be used to create a derivative work or may be included in a collected work (adaptive use right). The author of a computer program also has the exclusive rental right (rental right – only for com - puter programs). The moral right’s essence/core elements cannot be assigned or waived. Exploitation rights can be assigned, unlike in Germany, for example. 3.5 Term of Protection and Termination Copyright protection in all works, regardless of the respective category, terminates 70 years after the death of the author (post mortem auc - toris). In the case of computer programs only, the protection terminates 50 years after the death of the author. The term of protection regarding joint works terminates 70 years after the death of the last surviving author (50 years for computer programs). Copyright terminates in total; no rights survive the expiration of the term. Swiss law does not provide for protection of moral rights post-mor - tem based on other statutes. Other means of protection, such as unfair competition law or trade mark law, potentially do not terminate and are applicable after the copyright term expires (principle of cumulation). 3.6 Collective Rights Management Systems There are collective rights management and cor - responding collecting societies in Switzerland, which aim to facilitate the exploitation of copy -
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