Market development
Incomes of collective rights management organisations are subject to short-term fluctuations from year to year and from organisation to organisation.
Short-term trend 2012–2022
Income resulting from the collective rights management in CHF
| Year | ProLitteris | SSA | SUISA** | SUISSIMAGE | SWISSPERFORM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 32,200,000 | 19,896,000 | 131,722,000 | 56,510,000 | 43,890,000 |
| 2013 | 33,470,000 | 21,024,112 | 135,722,000 | 60,644,000 | 47,557,034 |
| 2014 | 34,170,000 | 21,333,430 | 141,319,000 | 62,800,000 | 48,688,685 |
| 2015 | 31,059,919* | 22,734,527 | 142,680,732 | 66,848,931 | 51,550,157 |
| 2016 | 32,147,178 | 22,942,707 | 147,129,561 | 71,686,997 | 54,842,727 |
| 2017 | 34,933,115 | 22,876,045 | 150,039,912 | 80,702,423 | 60,257,825 |
| 2018 | 35,996,794 | 23,310,785 | 153,777,618 | 93,034,451 | 58,042,378 |
| 2019 | 35,598,036 | 25,259,783 | 160,878,900 | 79,254,918 | 58,323,980 |
| 2020 | 34,447,969 | 23,884,132 | 144,010,536 | 79,412,153 | 59,174,858 |
| 2021 | 34,191,374 | 20,841,775 | 149,550,200 | 84,520,077 | 62,321,791 |
| 2022 | 34,780,452 | 28,983,816 | 180,452,099 | 85,509,273 | 61,245,968 |
* The decrease in revenues in 2015 compared with 2014 was due to a change in accounting policy (intermediation transactions of CHF 1,565,525 were deducted for the first time) and in the time limit for writing back reserves for non-distributable remuneration (now five years instead of three, representing a decrease in revenues of approx. CHF 2 million in 2015.
** As of 2018, the consolidated revenues of the SUISA Group are listed. This includes the SUISA Cooperative society and SUISA Digital Licensing AG.
The growth in gross income – comparable over the last 15 years with the gross domestic product per capita – viewed over an extended period is largely attributable to the following factors:
- New societies for additional repertoires and rightholders have been established whose rights are now exploited collectively. For example, ProLitteris and SUISSIMAGE were first authorised to administer rights in 1982, with SSA following in 1992 and SWISSPERFORM in 1993.
- The collective management has been deliberately developed by the legislature: As a result of amendments to the law (1982, 1993, 2008, 2020) certain utilisations of copyright works are now remunerated via collective rights management organisations (retransmission rights, remuneration for private copying, photocopying in companies, rental levy, etc.).
- A new form of utilisation comes into use. For example, technological progress led to television on mobile phones. This new utilisation has been licensed since 2005 through a relevant tariff and thereby made possible. Other examples of this are the virtual Personal Video Recorder (vPVR) and rented set-top-boxes with recording function for digital television. Internal company utilisations in digital form also led to the so-called network tariffs (JT 9).
- An existing utilisation increases with a corresponding increase in income from the tariff. If, for example, more concerts are staged, there is a resulting increase in turnover in the SUISA concert tariff K.
In other words, the greater the use of protected music, films, literature, images, etc. the higher the receipts for the benefit of the authors. This incidentally corresponds to the principles of all international agreements in the area of authors’ and neighbouring rights. The Internet and mobile telephony in particular have led to many new forms of utilisation.
Conclusion
As a consequence of increasing mass utilisation, in recent decades there has been a shift away from individual management by the rightholders themselves towards collective management.
The goal of the collective rights management organisations is to provide a simple way for users to acquire rights and thereby ensure the authors and other rightholders a fair reward for the utilisation of their works. Authors’ rights create culture.
