ProLitteris
| Swiss Copyright Society for Literature and Fine Arts, cooperative | |
|---|---|
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| purpose | Collecting society |
| Chair: | Philip Kübler (Director) |
| Establishment date: | September 19, 1974 |
| Seat : |
Zurich Switzerland
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| Website: | www.prolitteris.ch |
ProLitteris is the Swiss copyright society (collecting society) for literature (i.e. text) and visual arts (e.g. painting, design, photography) based in Zurich . The ProLitteris was 1974 founded and is equipped with official authorization from the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property active (IGE). Since July 1, 2000, it has also been licensed in the Principality of Liechtenstein. The current director is the lawyer Philip Kübler .
tasks
The company manages both statutory licenses (e.g. copy remuneration according to the joint tariffs GT 8 for reprography and GT 9 for networks) and contractual licenses (in particular image rights and broadcasting rights). It negotiates tariffs with users (companies, educational institutions, museums, etc.) for the use of protected published works such as books, newspaper articles or pictures. This defines the remuneration to be paid to ProLitteris and administered by ProLitteris in trust for the owners of the rights (authors, publishers, legal successors, etc.). After deducting administrative costs, a share for the welfare foundation and for cultural funding, all income goes to the owners of the rights and to other collecting societies in Germany and abroad (sister societies) in accordance with detailed distribution regulations. ProLitteris is a cooperative and is not for profit.
- In particular, ProLitteris or the statutory licenses it manages grant users the following rights of use:
- Sending text or images on a radio or television program,
- Dissemination of texts or images via communication networks,
- Playback in public places (restaurants, sales rooms, etc.),
- Photocopying and digital reproductions in the company's own company,
- Recording on storage media / blank media for private personal use,
- Rental in libraries and
- Use in schools.
The rights of use represented also cover the international repertoire; this based on numerous reciprocity agreements with foreign sister companies.
The cooperative is under the supervision of the Federal Institute for Intellectual Property (IGE). Your articles of association, the distribution regulations and the annual reports must be approved.
ProLitteris awards the ProLitteris Prize annually through its cultural foundation . This honors outstanding achievements by authors, visual artists, journalists and publishers.
The Welfare Foundation, which is part of the cooperative, ensures that pensions and benefits are paid out to authors and artists in need in Switzerland.
Members
The cooperative has over 10,000 members (end of 2015: 10,571, made up of authors and publishers). Members of ProLitteris are in particular:
- writer
- Authors of word-dramatic and scientific works
- Journalists
- visual artist
- Photographers
- Book, newspaper and magazine publishers
- Art, stage and music publishers
- Legal successor of all branches
Membership is free. In the area of legal licenses, it is the formal prerequisite for an author or a publisher to participate in the remuneration collected for the use of their own works. To do this, they report the works and rights to them, usually via the ProLitteris online portal. For visual artists and photographers, membership has the advantage that the tracking of reproductions and other uses of one's own works is delegated to a central organization.
history
On September 19, 1974, the cooperative and Teledrama , another collecting society , were founded in Zurich as close cooperation partners of SUISA (Swiss Society for the Rights of Authors of Musical Works). Otto Steiger was co-founder and first president of ProLitteris until 1984 .
The cooperative has been independent since January 1st, 1977. On July 1, 1978 the first general assembly was called in Bern with 23 members. In 1981 the activities of the collecting societies were extended to the right of retransmission by the Swiss Federal Council .
Dated December 4, 1982 , ProLitteris and Teledrama merged . The field of activity was expanded to include photography and fine arts. In the general assembly of 1984, the company name ProLitteris was chosen. The cooperative set itself two goals, on the one hand to exercise and enforce reprographic rights , and on the other to set up an image department for reproduction law .
In the first half of 1993 the cooperative received the license from the IPI for the exploitation of all claims for remuneration provided for in the law, based on the text and image categories. Since then, the income has been made up:
- from statutory remuneration claims of ProLitteris and its sister companies SUISA , SUISSIMAGE, SSA and - for ancillary copyrights - SWISSPERFORM and
- from rights of voluntary collective exploitation (image rights, broadcasting rights).
At the general assembly in September 2015, the cooperative announced a comprehensive realignment and cost reductions. Accordingly, the annual report shows significantly lower administrative costs (25% less than in 2014) and works with greater transparency, etc. a. thanks to the Swiss GAAP FER accounting standard . ProLitteris passed an official analysis of administrative costs, with which the supervisory authority checked the economic management in 2015, just like the other Swiss collecting societies.
Use of the income
The cooperative's income has risen continuously and is now over CHF 30 million. In 2014, the income amounted to CHF 29,454 million and in 2015 to 30,587 million. Members in Switzerland and foreign beneficiaries were able to enjoy a long time more and more compensations are distributed. However, administrative costs also rose up to 2014, which increased the administrative cost rate - the ratio between income and expenses.
criticism
ProLitteris and the other collecting societies are subject to a copyright policy debate about the scope and nature of the enforcement of intellectual property rights. It is widely accepted that collective exploitation via central organizations is a good solution when individual exploitation by the rights holders themselves reaches its limits and the law or the rights holders still want to ensure remuneration for authors, producers and performers. The principle applies that the use of protected works should lead to adequate compensation for rightholders. A second criticism concerned the former director of ProLitteris, whose management was presented as not being very cost-conscious. The production of the elaborately designed members' magazine Gazzetta ProLitteris devoured around a quarter of a million Swiss francs every year. Gazzetta magazine was finally discontinued in 2015. The salaries of the management of the collecting societies and, in the case of ProLitteris, an additional payment into the pension fund of the managing director based on resolutions of the executive board in the years 2007 to 2011 were also controversial politically and in the media.
In 2014, the IPI filed an order against ProLitteris paying the former director Hefti, in addition to the regular salary, contributions to the pension fund that had been neglected for years. Hefti had, with the tolerance of the supervisory authority, paid an additional 1.75 million francs into his pension scheme within five years. In the meantime, ProLitteris has commented self-critically on this past matter, but at the same time challenged the order of the supervisory authority for fundamental considerations.
Since 2015, the cooperative has initiated a systematic improvement in its costs and has committed itself to a program that ensures compliance with all requirements. The new director comes from the telecommunications industry and is therefore also familiar with the user side of copyright law. The auditors of the supervisory authority IGE Analysis of the Administrative Costs of all Swiss Collecting Societies found that the collecting societies were operating economically and cost-consciously overall. In contrast to other countries, the recycling system in Switzerland has no equipment levy , which is why the administrative burden may be comparatively higher. In addition, it is a cooperative organized under private law , whose members approve the annual accounts and the budget of the collecting society each year and whose board of directors controls the management .
Magazines and reports
- Annual report , from 2015 annual report , Zurich, annually since 1988 (online)
- Gazzetta ProLitteris. Zurich, every six months since 2/1986; Discontinued at the end of 2014.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Annual Report 2015, available under Archived Copy ( Memento of the original from June 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ NZZ, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, from January 14, 2016, http://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/pro-litteris-packt-die-kosten-an-1.18676872
- ↑ Pro-Litteris boss to repay half a million francs In: Tages-Anzeiger , July 25, 2014, accessed on July 26, 2014.
- ↑ Annual reports of ProLitteris 2014 and 2015, available under Archived Copy ( Memento of the original from June 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ «These are not public charges». In: Tages-Anzeiger , May 20, 2011, accessed on May 20, 2011.
