Private individuals

ProLitteris offers licenses under the common tariffs (CT) on behalf of all collective management organizations.

These include the royalty for copying in schools and organizations (common tariffs 7 and 8), for rental in libraries and video rental stores (common tariff 5), and for uses by people with disabilities (common tariff 10).

In these cases, ProLitteris is responsible, on behalf of all domestic and foreign collective management organizations, for collecting and distributing the royalties.

In addition, ProLitteris grants contractual licenses. In these cases, specific works are licensed at the request of the licensees.

You can obtain a contractual license from ProLitteris if you wish to do the following:

• Reproduce specific works of art on the internet, in books, as printed matter, or in another form, provided that the artist concerned is represented by ProLitteris (Art distribution)
• Use specific works from collections or archives, provided that the rights holders are unknown or cannot be located (CT 13 for orphan works)
• Use a large number of texts or images, provided that the normal exploitation of the rights is not impaired in this way, for example for an «open archive», for internally used AI systems, or for minor extensions of statutory limitations (extended collective license, ECL)
• As a broadcasting company, use texts and other literary works (Audio distribution)

With a license from ProLitteris, you have copyright under control. In return for a transparent and moderate royalty, you ensure that no rights of authors, artists, photographers, publishing houses, and other rights holders are infringed.

The licenses from ProLitteris depend on the area in which they are granted.

For copying levies and other statutory licenses (mandatory collective management), ProLitteris contacts you. You declare the required information via the form or portal, and ProLitteris invoices you for the correct royalty. If you do not provide complete information, ProLitteris has to estimate the data and determine the royalty accordingly.

For contractual licenses (voluntary collective management: reproducing works of art, orphan works or extended collective licenses), you take action:

• You submit a license request to ProLitteris.
• ProLitteris then defines the scope of use and the costs.
• You receive the license and the corresponding invoice.

Licenses from ProLitteris in all cases ensure legally compliant use and compliance with copyright. All tariffs, contracts and royalties are legally reviewed and are subject to supervision.

Certain uses are permitted by law and do not require a license from the rightsholders.

In certain cases, the law allows protected content to be used without consent:

• Use in a personal circle, at work, and in teaching
• Quotations and reporting, provided the source is necessary and there is an engagement with it
• Freedom of panorama, when works are visible in public spaces
• Exhibition catalogues and directories of collections

These uses are subject to statutory conditions and are only permitted within the respective scope.

If the law provides for a royalty for such use, ProLitteris or another collective management organization takes care of it.

Uses are different ways in which you use or share protected content. This is relevant not only in relation to ProLitteris, but whenever you work with protected material or wish to publish such material.

These are the most common uses:

• Reproductions: copies on paper or in digital form, e.g. by printing, scanning, saving or copying out by hand
• Online publications: making content accessible on the internet, for example on websites, social media or platforms
• Presentations and performances: presenting, showing or playing content, e.g. in presentations, training sessions or events
• Broadcasting: distributing content via radio or television
• Adaptations and transformations into other work categories: reproduction, translations, film adaptations.

Copyright law is relevant as long as a work is protected. As a rule, protection applies until 70 years after the death of the author. In certain cases, different protection periods apply.

You have to observe copyright when you use protected content and thereby interfere with rights.

Two conditions must be fulfilled:

• You carry out an act of use, e.g. you copy, put content online or present it.
• You use protected works or performances created by others, such as texts, images, audio or video content.

The following are not considered use:

• the mere consumption of content
• the adoption of ideas, facts or style
• the mere linking on the internet

In the area of schools and companies, the following additionally applies: For internal uses, it does not depend on every single act. Instead, the royalty is based on general uses within an organization, as regulated in common tariffs 7 and 8.

ProLitteris grants extended collective licenses (ECL) for the internal use of artificial intelligence with services such as Copilot, Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude or Apertus.

As a rightsholder, user or licensee, you can obtain information from ProLitteris about copyright at any time.

ProLitteris helps to ensure that fair conditions also apply in the field of artificial intelligence.

Pure AI outputs are not works within the meaning of the Copyright Act (URG). However, outputs that were created with AI are protected by copyright if there is a human intellectual creation with an individual character.

This is the case:

• if a prompt is so creative and detailed that it itself has the character of a work,
• and if this individual design is recognizable in the AI result.

In addition, so-called related rights can arise in an audio (sound recording) or video (audiovisual recording).

If you work with AI, it is advisable to document your own creative contribution. This allows you to prove later that a protected work exists.

In the view of legal experts and in the assessment of ProLitteris, training AI systems with protected works requires the consent of the rights holders.

The question is the subject of court proceedings abroad. At the same time, statutory solutions are being discussed in order to clearly regulate the use of works for AI systems and to provide appropriate royalties.

In this situation, ProLitteris offers an extended collective license (ECL) so that companies can use internal AI systems in a legally compliant way.

You can explicitly state on your website that the training of AI systems is only permitted with your consent. This makes your position clear and documents your rights.

Possible wording includes:

• «Training of AI systems only with specific consent»
• International: «Opt-out for uses with artificial intelligence under the EU Directive on text and data mining»

The practical benefit is currently limited, because the legal situation is unclear and AI systems often do not take such statements into account.

AI systems allow protected works to be transferred into an AI application in order to translate, summarize, or analyze them. \^

In the view of ProLitteris, this processing requires consent. This consent exists in the personal sphere and in teaching, because the Copyright Act defines a corresponding freedom of use (Art. 19 para. 1 let. a and b CopA). For companies, such a statutory permission is missing – it only exists for reproductions for internal information and documentation.

For you, this means: When you upload texts, images, music, or other protected content into an AI, you are using these works under copyright law.

For companies, ProLitteris offers an extended collective license. Instead of obtaining individual consents from the rightsholders, the ECL from ProLitteris covers internal systems such as Copilot.