Copyright Review Commission Report - ICT Law and Regulation ...

Administrative Court and thereafter to the Federal Supreme Court. The final approved tariffs shall be binding on the courts(Article 59(3)).6.3.2. THE TARIFFSThe approved tariffs are available online. The tariffs include SWISSPERFORM’s radio broadcast tariff (which also caters forinteractive Internet broadcasts) and is published athttp://www.swissperform.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/Tarife/2010_A_Radio_d.pdf.Article 47 of the Copyright Act provides that where more than one collecting society collects royalties in the same field ofutilisation, they shall draw up a joint tariff applying uniform principles and shall designate one collecting society as the jointoffice for payment. A common tariff has been established for background music. Common tariff 3A covers all repertoires (notonly music but also neighbouring rights, audio-visual works, literary works, such as features on radio) that are broadcast asbackground music in public places. One society has been designated as the common office for payment (see (SUISA)Common Tariff 3a (Gemeinsamer Tarif 3a: Tariftext)) for domestic music on hold (seehttp://www.suisa.ch/de/services/download-center/). Similarly, SUISSIMAGE manages the common tariff for satellitebroadcasting: http://www.suissimage.ch/fileadmin/content/pdf/3_Nutzer_Tarife/gt1-de.pdf (Common Tariff 1/ SUISSIMAGE).The Swiss collecting societies are responsive to new technological developments and rapidly adapt their business operationsto new modes of exploitation. For example, since 2005 Swiss collecting societies have been licensing users for mobile phonereception of television broadcasts and for the use of virtual Personal Video Recorders (vPVRs) for digital television.Anomalies exist. It is, for example, surprising that SWISSPERFORM has no tariff for mobile ringtones. This collecting societyadvised that it is currently (July 2011) in negotiations with the mobile providers. SUISA also reported that it does not havestrong licensing contracts with the mobile providers, but that it has contracts with the record labels, such as Sony. Thereseems to be fragmentation as far as digital rights are concerned and the expansion of the range of storage media on whichremuneration is due.6.4. THE ‘BLANK TAPE LEVY’The Swiss Copyright Law provides for the payment of a levy to collective rights management organisations on theimportation and sale of media suitable for the recording of works, such as CDs and DVDs (‘blank tape levy’). The amountpayable is 19 cents for each DVD-RW and 7 cents for each DVD-R. In 2006, the Federal Arbitration Board approved the newjoint tariff 4d, which expanded the tariff to MP3 recording devices. With the advent of ‘music phones’ such as the AppleiPhone, the collective rights management organisations submitted a joint tariff 4e, arguing that such devices should betreated on the same basis as the MP3 players. In March 2010, a reduced joint tariff 4e was approved in principle by theFederal Arbitration Board. This decision is being appealed by the manufacturers and importers of these devices.- 151 -