Register between 1 and 3 videos
Apply for a licence
Are you planning to produce between one and three videos with music per year and make them available online?
When you produce videos with music and make them available online, the authors have a legal claim to remuneration. This applies to videos on company websites and social media, for example.
In this regard, we distinguish between three tariff categories: production, making available and screening of a video.
Production (in the sense of manufacturing) of videos
When making videos with music available to the public on a website, you must ensure that you hold the necessary rights. You can obtain a licence from SUISA to record and reproduce music on data carriers.
Making-available of videos (streaming)
If you embed and make available one or more videos with music on your own website, you are required to register them with SUISA. You can acquire a licence by paying a single fee per video, or an annual flat fee covering all your videos. The flat fee is worthwhile for more than three videos per year. ((Link to website for 4 videos or more))
Screening videos with music
If you intend to screen a video in public, you need to have the corresponding licence. This also applies to screenings where no admission is charged, or to screenings in venues other than cinemas or the like in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. For example, screenings at fairs, exhibitions and corporate events.
Other rights and noteworthy points
To produce a video you also need the synchronisation rights from the authors and publishers. These rights allow you to use music in a video. They can be obtained from the publisher or the authors.
If you wish to use a given piece of music, you must also acquire the neighbouring rights from the label that published the recording.
For more information, see “Other rights”.
If you have already obtained the rights (e.g. commissioned music) or if the video was produced by a business partner abroad, you do not have to go through SUISA. However, if the videos were produced in Switzerland and you have not yet acquired the production rights, you must register the videos with SUISA.
The rights for the use of music in videos have to be ascertained and acquired for each video individually.
Production music: a single-source solution
A simpler solution is to use production music for your video. The advantage of production music is that, in addition to the authors’ rights, SUISA can transfer the neighbouring rights and the synchronisation rights to you in a single licence. For more information, see the “Production music” page.
If you do not use production music, you should be aware that the rightholders may at any time prohibit you from using their works. Therefore, you need to obtain the aforesaid rights.
How to proceed:
If you are planning to make available more than three videos, please follow the information there.
Fill in the online form. You can save the form and finish filling it in later.
We will check your application and then issue you an invoice. The licence is valid as soon as payment is received.
Once it receives your payment, SUISA distributes the corresponding royalties to the entitled composers, lyricists and publishers.
FAQ: Frequently asked questions
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If access to your website is protected by a password and restricted to family members and a close circle of friends, Swiss copyright law does not require you to licence the music content. Each case must be considered on its own merits. Our Legal Department can assist you with specific cases.
Social media and intranet do not qualify as private use! -
Yes. Basically, it makes no difference whether or not a musical work is used commercially on the internet. Swiss copyright law does not distinguish between commercial and non-commercial usages but between private and public usages, whereby public usages are generally subject to the payment of royalties.
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First and foremost, the provider. The provider is the natural or legal person who places a protected title on an internet server and thus makes it publicly available. As the provider, he is also responsible for the website’s contents and must obtain all the necessary licences.
The service provider is secondly responsible and may be made liable. In Switzerland, contrary to the EU, there are no specific rules governing the liability of providers, and the general rules apply (participation in copyright infringement). -
We distinguish between the following uses for example:
- uploading musical works on a server (mechanical rights);
- making musical works available on the internet (on demand);
- sending musical works via the internet;
- downloading musical works from the internet.
The internet is not a legal no man’s land: copyright law regulates all uses, online and offline. For example: uploading a musical work on a server is the same thing as (digitally) reproducing that work.
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Pursuant to Article 10(1) of the Federal Copyright Act, the author has the exclusive right to decide if, where and how his work may be used. Article 10(2)(c) further provides for the non-exhaustive right to make a work available so that users can access it at the time and place of their choice. This right is assigned to SUISA by its members when they sign the rights administration agreement. Thanks to the reciprocity agreements signed with its sister societies, SUISA manages what is referred to as the world music repertoire in Switzerland (BGE 107 II 60). For a fee calculated in accordance with our online tariff conditions, we make this repertoire available to our clients for use on the internet.
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A web presence encompasses all the websites of a company or an individual on the internet. Different addresses (domains) qualify as different web presences. Each social media profile (Facebook, YouTube etc.) qualifies as a separate web presence.
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No. According to Swiss law, intranet qualifies as a public usage, not as private usage. If protected content is placed on an intranet, it must be licensed at the online tariff rates.
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Yes. But in order to do so, depending on the type of licensing, you have to exclude certain rights from the rights administration agreement signed with SUISA. This enables you to licence the excluded rights directly.
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Copyright law is a complex field. The following checklist can be of assistance if you have questions concerning copyrights for uploading music:
For music and video uploads:
Can you confirm all of the following points?
- Did you compose the music yourself?
- Did you write the lyrics?
- Did you record and publish the song yourself or have you obtained permission from the producer or record company that made the recording?
- Do you have permission from all the right-holders to use the relevant samples for your songs?
- Can you confirm that you do not have record contract with a music label or record company?
- Can you confirm that you do not have a publishing deal or music publishing contract?
If you can answer yes to all 6 questions, you may upload your music or film without a licence from SUISA.