Suissimage looks after the copyrights of film authors such as script writers and directors as well as copyright owners such as film producers. We have the statutory mandate within the framework of the collective management to ensure that these rightholders receive appropriate remuneration for the use of their audiovisual works.

Suissimage negotiates tariffs with the competent associations, setting out the conditions of use for the different utilizations. Based on this, we award licences to our customers and collect the royalties due. In this way we act as a link between the users of audiovisual works on the one hand and the rightholders to these films on the other.

Suissimage operates a monitoring system with which to ascertain the actual utilisations of its repertoire and compares this data with its database of works in which more than two millions audiovisual works are registered together with their rightholders. This enables the monies received to be distributed among the rightholders simply and transparently. Here 10% of the proceeds is deducted in advance for the collective benefit of members of the film industry through the two Suissimage foundations, the cultural fund and the solidarity fund, while the remaining 90% is allocated individually to the rightholders in line with the utilisations. The administrative costs associated with our work these last years lay between 4% and 5%, which means that out of every franc received, we are able to pass on around 95 cents to the rightholders.

Thanks to reciprocity contracts with more than 95 affiliated foreign societies in around 45 countries, we ensure that the rightholders represented by us are also remunerated for foreign utilisation of their works. Conversely, this network also ensures that foreign rightholders are paid for the utilisation of their films in Switzerland and Principality of Liechtenstein.

Suissimage was founded in 1981 by the Swiss film industry as a private non-profit organisation and takes the legal form of a cooperative. It is based in Bern. We possess the necessary authorisation from the federal authorities to administer rights, our business management and distribution regulations are supervised by the Federal Intellectual Property Office (IGE) and the fairness of our tariffs is verified by a Federal Arbitration Commission (ESchK).

Though its work, Suissimage is also providing the essential legal framework for new, innovative offers such as television on mobile phones while at the same time ensuring fair remuneration for the rightholders to the films used for this purpose.