Switzerland: music and movies can still be downloaded legally

Every third resident of Switzerland downloads unlicensed music, movies and games from the Internet, and since last year the Swiss government has decided what to do with it. This week their conclusion has been published.

The general conclusion of the study is that the current copyright law, according to which the downloading of copyrighted materials for personal use is permitted, should not change. The report begins with the fact that the Internet has fundamentally changed the approach to copying files. Xerox, audio tapes and video recorders, although they allowed users to make good copies, but these devices lack a convenient way of distribution. With the development of the world wide web, everything has changed.

Media companies oppose all these technological inventions because they fear that their business will be crushed. This is the wrong point of view, according to the Swiss government, which advocates the possibility of finding technology to be used well instead of suppressing its development.
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“Every time a new media technology becomes available, it is always under attack. This is the price we pay for progress. The winners are those who are able to use new technologies with their advantages, and the losers are those who missed these events and continue to follow the old business model, ”the report says.

The government report also concluded that even in the current situation, when piracy is flourishing, media companies do not necessarily lose money. These conclusions are based on the results of a study conducted by the Dutch government last year, since the two countries are similar in many aspects.

About a third of Swiss citizens over 15 years old download pirated music, movies and games from the Internet. However, because of this, they do not spend less money, since the average budget for entertainment is fairly constant. According to a Dutch study, people who download music are more frequent visitors to concerts, and people who download games actually bought more games than those who didn't download anything. Also in the music industry - obscure groups are becoming more popular due to the free availability of their tracks.

Then the Swiss report goes on to review some of the repressive anti-piracy laws and regulations that have been implemented in other countries recently. For example, the three-step law of Hadopi . 12 million was spent on Hadopi law in France this year, and this figure is considered too high by the Swiss. It is highly doubtful, the report says, that the law will come into full force, as the right of access to the Internet is one of the fundamental human rights according to the decision of the UN Human Rights Council. The Council emphasized that the Hadopi law is a disproportionate law that should be repealed.

Other measures, such as filtering or blocking content and websites, were also rejected, as this would damage freedom of speech and violate privacy laws. The report notes: even if these measures would be implemented, there are a large number of ways to circumvent them.

The general conclusion of the government is that the entertainment industry must adapt to changing consumer behavior. Swiss parliamentarians are not going to change the laws for the reason that the bad influence of downloading content from the Internet on the national culture has not been proven.

In addition to content downloaders, it is almost impossible for companies to pursue, by law, every ordinary content distributor in Switzerland. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that torrent trackers are not allowed to collect the IP addresses of file distributors, which makes it impossible for copyright holders to collect evidence.

Original report in German: www.ejpd.admin.ch/content/ejpd/de/home/dokumentation/mi/2011/2011-11-30.html