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The demands of the interest groups

How the revision came about

The draft of the copyright act was sent to the cantons, political parties and interest groups as part of the consultation procedure on October 1, 2004. All of them agree that the copyright law needs to be modified in view of technological developments. Exactly how this should be affected, however, is far from unanimous.

 

The artists and performers are in favor of a comprehensive implementation of the WIPO Internet Treaties into the Swiss copyright law. However, they want to keep the legally permitted uses – namely personal use – as is, as long as they receive adequate compensation for the use of their works.

 

The entertainment industry is demanding that protection of digital content against illegal copying be improved. It wants an effective circumvention prohibition for technological measures, such as in the EU Copyright Directive, as well as a limitation on copying for personal use. That would lead to the possibility of charging consumers individually with a pay-per-click kind of system – if you use it, you pay; if you don’t, you don’t pay – in the near future.

 

Broadcasters feel that the use of new communication technologies is essential to providing their services to all consumers. Among other things, they want a realistic easement for the use of their archived productions.

 

Consumer and user groups want to know which uses are permissible, and they fear that permissible uses could be massively restricted by prohibiting the circumvention of technological protection. In particular, they fear that the information and documentation possibilities currently permitted for education, research and science would be negatively impacted and are calling for weaker circumvention regulation. In addition, they feel strongly that the royalty system should be revised when the protection of technological measures is introduced. This is so that users won’t have to pay more than once – i.e., once to the content provider and once to the collecting society – when digital rights management systems are in place.

 

Views on the copyright revision consultation (in German)