With the new distribution plan of December 2021, VG WORT has also changed the royalties for book publishing houses and the reporting system. From now on, publishing houses must declare the rights that have been granted to them by authors (in particular the reproduction and distribution right). In contrast, in future no approval of the publishing share will be required, as was necessary from the authors’ side during the transitional phase of recent years. The amount of the royalty for publishing houses is now legally limited in Germany. A minimum share of two thirds applies for authors.
At the beginning of April 2022, ProLitteris reached an understanding with VG WORT on how VG WORT’s statutory royalties are distributed in Switzerland. This concerns rightsholders who are affiliated with ProLitteris, but not with VG WORT. Based on the discussions held, ProLitteris assumes the following for Swiss publishing houses:
– That the royalties of Swiss and German publishing houses are equivalent as a whole, even if Swiss publishing houses do not have an administration agreement with VG WORT. For ProLitteris, the ProLitteris distribution rules are primarily decisive, not the VG WORT distribution plan.
– That the two collective management organizations will increasingly set up direct reporting by Swiss publishing houses to VG WORT. Publishing houses that have an exploitation agreement with ProLitteris will be able to register with VG WORT using the ProLitteris Member ID and will participate in the distribution there. The payments will then continue to be processed via ProLitteris. An administration agreement and a membership with VG WORT are not necessary.
In this situation, ProLitteris considers it advantageous if publishing houses continue to obtain all royalties via ProLitteris, including VG WORT royalties for uses of works in Germany. Swiss publishing houses receive comprehensive royalties from Switzerland and from abroad via ProLitteris and receive the royalties from a single source.
If, instead, a publishing house in Switzerland decides to conclude an administration agreement with VG WORT as well, the publishing house would have to exclude all foreign countries from the transfer of rights in the new exploitation agreement with ProLitteris. The migration of all rightsholders of ProLitteris to the new exploitation agreement of ProLitteris will take place in the course of 2022, regardless of the issue of publishing participation. At ProLitteris it will not be possible to exclude rights and royalties only for Germany.
Team Works (works@prolitteris.ch) is responsible for the distribution of statutory royalties from Switzerland and from abroad and is available for further information.