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Register more than 3 videos

Are you planning to produce more than three videos with music per year and make them available online? If so, please observe the following guidelines:

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. 

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.

Licence options

Licence 1: Flat-fee licence for multiple videos with music

If you're a small company and satisfy the following conditions, you may apply for a flat-fee licence: companies with up to 50 employees and sales of less than CHF 9 million can upload however many image, educational and tutorial videos, and similar films onto their websites and social media profiles for a flat fee of CHF 344 per year. This flat fee covers both the production rights and the making-available (streaming) of your free online videos provided that the production budget for any single video does not exceed CHF 15,000 and the playing-time of the video concerned is no longer than 10 minutes. 

Thanks to the cooperation between SUISA and Audion GmbH, with the annual fee you acquire both the authors’ rights and the neighbouring rights.

Licence 2: Licence for several videos with music – no flat fee

If you do not satisfy the above criteria for a flat-fee licence, you must apply for a single licence. Single licences can be settled on a monthly or annual basis.

How to proceed:

Fill in the form for the relevant licence online. 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.

Go to licence application

FAQ: Frequently asked questions

  • The fee is based on the number of videos with music made available and the production budget. (PDF MoW Licensing Terms and Conditions)

  • Since you make music in videos publicly available on the internet, the authors have a legal right to remuneration. This is collected by SUISA and passed on to the authors.

  • Yes. SUISA is responsible for managing the making-available rights for videos intended for the public in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. As a rule, these rights cannot be acquired abroad. If your partner abroad exclusively uses copyright- and royalty-free music (which must be legally ascertained in each individual case), no fee is payable. However, many providers claim to offer music that is purportedly copyright and royalty-free and which, contrary to their own assurances, is not actually copyright or royalty free. For this reason, it is worthwhile verifying that only copyright and royalty-free music is actually offered.

  • If you only know the total number of videos (regardless of whether or not they contain music), you can tell us this total number. Based on experience, we assume 75% of all videos contain music and we will accordingly reduce the total number of your videos by 25%.

  • You report to us the average number of videos made available per year on the reference date of your choice. Based on your report, you will then receive an invoice for the current year. If, in the following year, the number of videos changes and moves into a different fee bracket, you should let us know by 28 February. (PDF MoW Licensing Terms and Conditions) Adjustments can be made once a year. Please report the change using the application form or via email.

  • From the following year onwards, no fee is owed.

  • If the authors are not members of a collecting society such as SUISA (or Germany’s GEMA, for example), you do not have to pay anything. Otherwise, you will have to pay a fee for making the music available. If the authors are members of a copyright  management organisation, you can only settle the synchronisation rights, and in certain cases the production and reproduction rights, directly.

  • We take the average value of the production costs of all the videos (the production budget of all the videos divided by the number of videos).

  • Yes. Videos that are only made available on an intranet are subject to the same licensing obligation as those made available on a website or on social media.

  • No. The licence only covers the author’s remuneration for making the music you use available on the internet. The synchronisation and reproduction rights must be acquired for each video in advance. If you copy the music from existing sources (e.g. a sound recording or directly from the Internet), then you also have to obtain the rights in the recording (neighbouring rights).

  • SUISA grants you the mechanical reproduction rights. To acquire the synchronisation right, you must contact the respective rightholders (composers, lyricists, publishers) directly (Publishers@suisa.ch). For the neighbouring rights, you should contact either the producer of the sound recording (the “label”), the IFPI (info@ifpi.ch) or Audion (info@audion-music.ch). We recommend that you use our Production Music Catalogue. This music includes all rights and saves you the effort of acquiring them individually.