Open letter from Swiss musicians
Today, the revision of copyright law is being debated in the Swiss parliament. Much to the displeasure of the Swiss music scene, a new amendment to the law is planned that would put Swiss authors in a worse position than foreign authors.
A proposal from the National Council's Legal Affairs Committee (RK-N) wants to abolish copyright royalties for TV and radio offerings in hotels, vacation homes, hospitals and prisons. If international law is complied with, the foreign amounts would still have to be paid, only Swiss productions would be worse off.
The remuneration costs hotels less than one franc per room per month, write Swiss music professionals in an open letter to parliament. This is "a miserable joke and an insult to music professionals in Switzerland".
The revision of the CopA was initiated in 2012. According to their own assessment, the music creators "backed a compromise for the revision with major concessions", which contained very little of their original demands. The RK-N's proposal unbalances this compromise and turns the revision against them. The Council of States had understood this and deleted the tourism demand; the RK-N had now reinserted it.
Photo: Jonas Zürcher / Unsplash
