Draft:ProLitteris
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|  |
Swiss Cooperative Society for Copyright in Literature and Art | |
Schweizerische Genossenschaft für Urheberrechte an Literatur und Kunst | |
 | |
| Founded | September 19, 1974 |
|---|---|
| Type | Cooperative |
| Headquarters | Zurich,  Switzerland |
| Fields | Copyright collective |
Director | Philip Kübler |
| Website | prolitteris |
ProLitteris is a Swiss collective copyright society for text and image, based in Zurich. The cooperative was founded in 1974 and operates with official authorisation from the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IGE).[1] Since 1 July 2000, it has also been licensed in the Principality of Liechtenstein. The current director is the lawyer Philip Kübler.
Responsibilities
[edit]The organisation is responsible, on behalf of the Swiss Federal Government and other collective societies, for managing copying royalties. These must be paid by companies, public administrations, schools and other organisations, as well as by libraries and other copying service providers, because reproduction for internal purposes is legally permitted in Switzerland but subject to payment.[2] In addition, ProLitteris manages contractual licences for artworks (Art sector) and for texts in radio and television (Audio sector). The legal basis for levy collection under the Swiss Copyright Act is supplemented by officially approved tariffs: so-called "joint tariffs" (GT - Gemeinsame Tarife) of the collective societies. These are tariffs based on linear broadcasting (GT 1, 2 and 12) or on analogue or digital copying (GT 4, 7, 8, 10), or the tariff covers a special case such as public performance (GT 3), rental in libraries and video libraries (GT 5), uses for people with disabilities (GT 10), uses of orphan works with unknown or untraceable right holders (GT 13) or video on demand (GT 14). Like other collective copyright societies, ProLitteris distributes the entire revenue to authors, artists and other creators as well as publishers, after deducting administrative costs and a share for the welfare foundation and for cultural promotion.[3]
The tariffs are reviewed and approved by the Federal Arbitration Commission for Copyright Matters (ESchK - Eidgenössische Schiedskommission), and the management is overseen by the supervisory authority IGE, both agencies of the Federal Department of Justice and Police (Eidgenössisches Justiz- und Polizeidepartement). The levies calculated by ProLitteris are binding and have been repeatedly upheld by Swiss courts. The represented usage rights also cover the international repertoire, supported by numerous reciprocal agreements with foreign sister organisations.[3]
Through its cultural foundation, ProLitteris awards the annual ProLitteris Prize to recognise outstanding achievements by authors, visual artists, journalists and publishers.[4] The ProLitteris Welfare Foundation provides old-age pensions and emergency assistance to authors and artists in need within Switzerland.[5]
Members
[edit]The cooperative has over 15,000 members, comprising creators and publishers. Members of ProLitteris include authors, translators, visual artists, photographers, illustrators, book publishers, newspapers and magazines, as well as online publishers.[6]
Membership is free. In the field of statutory licences, it is the formal prerequisite for a creator or publisher to participate in the levies collected from the use of their own works. The most important distributions by ProLitteris concern printed works (Print Distribution), works on the internet (Online Distribution) and works in radio and television (Broadcast Distribution).[6] Right holders declare their works and rights in the ProLitteris online portal. For visual artists and art photographers (Art sector) and for comedians, text authors, as well as publishers and authors of filmed literature (Audio sector), membership has the advantage that licensing and fee collection are delegated to a central organisation.[7]
History
[edit]On 19 September 1974, the cooperative and Teledrama, another collective copyright society, were founded in Zurich as close cooperation partners of SUISA (Swiss Cooperative Society for Music Authors and Publishers). Co-founder and first president of ProLitteris until 1984 was Otto Steiger. Since 1 January 1977, the cooperative has operated independently. On 1 July 1978, the first general meeting was held in Bern with 23 members. In 1981, the activities of the collective societies were extended to cable retransmission rights by the Swiss Federal Council. At the 1984 general meeting, the society name ProLitteris was decided upon. The cooperative set itself two goals: first, the administration and enforcement of reprography rights, and second, the establishment of an image department for copying rights.[8]
In 2014, the era of the controversial director Ernst Hefti came to an end. The new director was the lawyer, telecommunications manager and media law expert Philip Kübler.
At the general meeting in September 2015, the cooperative announced a comprehensive reorientation and cost reduction. Accordingly, the annual reports since 2015 show significantly lower administrative costs (around 25% less than in previous years) and greater transparency due to the accounting standard Swiss GAAP FER. An official analysis of administrative costs, with which the supervisory authority reviewed economic management in 2015, was passed by ProLitteris, as by other Swiss collective copyright societies.[9]
In the Swiss Federal Council's consultation report on the introduction of a performance protection law for media, ProLitteris was named as the responsible collective copyright society that would enforce the new remuneration claim against large search engine operators, should the corresponding legislative amendment enter into force.[10]
Use of revenue
[edit]The cooperative's revenue in 2023 was around 35 million Swiss francs, with administrative costs of around 5.5 million and distributions of around 30 million. The audited annual reports are published by ProLitteris with numerous explanations and key figures.[8]
Criticism
[edit]ProLitteris and the other collective societies belong to the cultural economy and are carried as cooperatives or clubs by the right holders. The total levies of the collective copyright societies finance creators, performers, producers and broadcasting companies in the fields of music, film, art and culture and, in the case of ProLitteris, literature and publishing in the areas of media, science and fiction. The basis of the fees is always the principle that holders of copyright should participate in the revenue generated by their works. As central collection agencies, collective societies are also subject to a copyright policy debate on the scope and manner of enforcement of intellectual property rights. It is widely accepted that collective copyright management through central organisations is a good solution when individual management by right holders reaches its limits and the law or right holders nevertheless wish to ensure remuneration for creators, producers and performers. The principle is that the use of protected works should lead to appropriate compensation for right holders. An additional criticism stems from the past and concerned the former managing director of ProLitteris, whose activities were portrayed as insufficiently cost-conscious and who, towards the end of his term, had the cooperative board approve a high pension fund contribution.
Since 2015, the cooperative has professionalised its administration, reduced costs and ensured compliance with all legal requirements. The new director comes from the telecommunications sector and is thus also familiar with the user side of copyright. The auditors of the supervisory authority IGE found in an analysis of the administrative costs of all Swiss collective copyright societies that these organisations operated economically and cost-consciously overall. Unlike in other countries, the Swiss collective copyright management system doesn't apply a device levy, which is why the administrative effort may be comparatively higher.[11] Moreover, it is a privately organised cooperative, whose members approve the annual reports each year and whose board controls the management.
With the emergence of large language models and systems of generative artificial intelligence, copyright and rights management face new challenges and opportunities. Representatives of intellectual property consider AI training using human creative achievements to be a systematic infringement of copyright that requires consent and must at least be remunerated, which could potentially be achieved through central collective copyright societies like ProLitteris.
Journals and reports
[edit]- Jahresbericht (Annual Report), from 2015 Geschäftsbericht (Annual Business Report), Zurich, annually since 1988 (online);
- Gazzetta ProLitteris. Zurich, half-yearly since 2/1986; discontinued at end of 2014.
References
[edit]- ^ "Verwertungsgesellschaften" [Copyright collective societies]. Eidgenössisches Institut für Geistiges Eigentum (in German). Retrieved 2025-10-23.
- ^ Fritsche, Peter (2019-01-08). "Mehrere hundert Klagen - Pro Litteris setzt Urheberrecht vor Gericht durch" [Several hundred lawsuits – Pro Litteris enforces copyright in court]. Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF) (in German). Retrieved 2025-10-28.
- ^ a b "Home page". ProLitteris (in German). Retrieved 2025-10-20.
- ^ "Kulturförderung" [Cultural promotion]. ProLitteris (in German). Retrieved 2025-10-20.
- ^ "Fürsorgestiftung ProLitteris" [ProLitteris Welfare Foundation]. Visarte (in German). Retrieved 2025-10-28.
- ^ a b "MEMBER DETAILS: ProLitteris". The International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations. Retrieved 2025-10-22.
- ^ "Urheber, Verlage" [Authors, Publishers]. ProLitteris (in German). Retrieved 2025-10-20.
- ^ a b "Über ProLitteris" [About ProLitteris]. ProLitteris (in German). Retrieved 2025-10-20.
- ^ Hürlimann, Brigitte (2016-01-14). "Pro Litteris packt die Kosten an" [Pro Litteris tackles costs]. Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 2025-10-20.
- ^ "Bundesrat konkretisiert Leistungsschutzrecht für Medienunternehmen" [Federal Council specifies ancillary copyright for media companies]. Swiss News Service (in German). 2024-06-26. Retrieved 2025-10-20.
- ^ ""Das sind keine öffentlichen Abgaben"" [‘These are not public levies.’]. Tages-Anzeiger (in German). 2011-05-20. Retrieved 2025-10-20.
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