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In 1991, Switzerland was the first country that was not a Member State of the European Union to join the EU's MEDIA programme, designed to promote the cinema. Following the rejection by the Swiss people of membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) in December 1992, Switzerland was excluded from the programme and as a result Swiss professionals in the cinema and audiovisual sector have not had access to the MEDIA programme since 1993. In 1993, in order to mitigate the negative effects of this exclusion, the Swiss Federal Council introduced funding for compensatory measures. The funding, renewed...

According to the new Article 12(1) of the Federal Law on copyright and neighbouring rights (LDA), copies of an audiovisual work may no longer be re-sold or circulated in any other way unless the originator either sells it in Switzerland or has authorised its sale in Switzerland. This statutory provision has been included in the new Federal Law on cinematographic culture and production (Cinema Act - LCin) and came into force on 1 August 2002, thereby prohibiting parallel imports of audiovisual works unless the holder of the rights for the work concerned has authorised this in advance. The ban applies...

The Federal Act on cinematographic culture and production of 14 December 2001 (Cinema Act - LCin) came into force on 1 August 2002 (see IRIS 2002-2: 12). The Act has now been supplemented by the Cinema Order (OCin), finalised on 3 July 2002 by the Swiss Federal Council. The OCin governs promotion of the diversity of the offer of films shown in public in Switzerland. The Office fédéral de la culture (Swiss Ministry of Culture - OFC) is responsible for carrying out an annual evaluation of the diversity of the cinematographic offer. A number of representatives of the cinematographic branch, particularly...

Cablecom GmbH has been given the green light to proceed with its plans for digital television in Switzerland. The Bundesrat (Council of Ministers) has granted Switzerland's largest cable operator a national TV licence for the provision of pay-TV. Cablecom plans to set up an encrypted digital TV service known as Cablecom Digital Cinema, which will be offered to cable customers for an additional payment. A key feature of the package is a so-called Near-Video-onDemand service, whereby feature films in particular are broadcast simultaneously on several different channels. Since the start times are...

As part of Swisscable, the umbrella association of Swiss cable operators, Cablecom is offering its customers its own set-top box so that they can receive the digital TV package Swissfun and the new Cablecom Digital Cinema service. Another digital pay-TV provider, Teleclub AG, is also offering its clients its own set-top box so that they can receive its programmes. After the Swiss Bundesrat (Council of Ministers), in a decision of 5 June 2001, banned Teleclub AG's proprietary set-top box for its payTV service and demanded an open standard (see IRIS 2001-7: 7), Teleclub is now giving its subscribers...