In June 2021, SUISA set a milestone for its members: Thanks to graphics which are easy to understand, music authors and publishers have a quick overview of the development of their copyright revenues of the last five years now that the Royalty Report has been launched. In addition, the tool lets you run individual analyses with one mouse click.
Self-service: Constant enhancement of online services
SUISA took a major step towards self-service with these new features: Members and customers can access all of the information and services of SUISA relevant to them, as easily as possible via internet. For a few years now, SUISA has been constantly expanding its online services. Authors, publishers but also users of music will be able to use more and more services via web portals – in a simple and comfortable manner. SUISA is going to publish news about the new services via all of its channels.
Members will benefit from this on the one hand: Instead of reverting to time and cost consuming queries via phone, letter or e-mail, they can now access all details on the contractual relationship with SUISA online via their personal login to the membership portal “My account”. SUISA, on the other hand, will also benefit from this by saving time and cost for providing advice via phone, e-mail or letter. This, in turn, is an advantage to the authors and publishers because SUISA will then be in a position to pay out more to its rightsholders thanks to the costs savings made.
New criteria for members who are entitled to vote
The SUISA Board of Directors decided in December 2020 to adapt the criteria for members who are entitled to vote. Authors and publishers will be admitted as members with voting rights if they have been SUISA principals for at least one year and had at least CHF 3,000 in royalties paid out to them since their registration. Previously, this amount was CHF 2,000. This change entered into force in 2021.
Furthermore, the contractual membership relationship will be reverted into a mandate relationship if members received less than CHF 3,000 in distribution payments overall for their works during the last ten years. This amendment shall be made in line with item 5.5.4 of the SUISA Articles of Association:
5.5 Membership shall end:
[…]
5.5.4 if the remuneration distributed to a member over a ten-year period does not reach the threshold set by the Board, and the membership status reverts to a simple mandate relationship; […]
Principals shall be equal to members with voting rights with respect to financial matters. They have, just like the members, the same entitlements to licensing and distribution of the collections for the works which are broadcast, performed, reproduced or used online. They do, however, not have voting rights in the General Meeting of the Cooperative Society.
Changes to the SUISA membership structure
The reason for this change is today’s membership structure of SUISA: At the end of 2020, SUISA had more than 12,000 members entitled to vote and nearly 28,000 principals. Among these 40,000 rightsholders, only about 60% generate income from the exploitation of their works. More than a third of principals and members never receive a distribution at all because their works are neither performed, recorded, broadcast nor used online. Even among the 12,000 rightsholders with voting rights, nearly half has hardly generated any copyright revenues during the last few years.
Even though SUISA is hardly playing a major role for them in terms of income, they were entitled to vote about the future and fate of the Cooperative Society at the SUISA General Meeting. In future it should only be members for whom SUISA is a major source of income who can decide on the topics presented to the SUISA General Meeting.
Members who do not fulfil the conditions mentioned, will revert to principals without a voting right at the General Meeting. Those who are affected will receive a letter in January 2022 where they will be personally informed about this.
Register now for “My account”
Benefit from the online services of SUISA and register for the membership portal “my account”: www.suisa.ch/my-account. All rightsholders, members and principals, can get information regarding their settlements and register their works or launch queries on a 24/7 basis there.
Die sicherlich gutgeplanten Neuerungen sind viel zu umständlich und nichts für ein normales SUISA-Mitglied.