(prepared by Swiss Institute of Comparative Law for Council of Europe)
This is one of series of country reports prepared for the Council of Europe in 2015. Other countries' reports, and responses from national governments, are available here. [The report for Switzerland is also available in French on the site.] The studies undertake to present the laws and, in so far as information is easily available, the practices concerning the filtering, blocking and takedown of illegal content on the internet.
In the so-called Tribune de Genève case, the Swiss Supreme Court held that a newspaper is civilly liable (Article 28 of the Swiss civil code) when it hosts on its website the blog of a user whose content infringes on the personality rights of a third party. According to the Supreme Court, this liability is justified by the fact that the newspaper contributes to the diffusion of the infringing content to the public and a large circle of readers. The entity hosting the blog can be ordered to eliminate infringing contents on personality rights. Furthermore: (1) The Swiss Supreme Court explicitly clarified that the liability incurred by the infringement of personality rights is not related to the control over the infringing content. Put differently, since this type of liability does not require any fault (wilful intent or...
AGUR 12 is a working group created in 2012 by the Federal Councillor Simonetta Sommaruga, Head of the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police, and under the supervision of the Director General of the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property, Roland Grossenbacher. The working group is responsible for identifying the possibilities that exist for adapting copyright law to technical developments. The group recently issued its report and recommended, among others, the adoption of a takedown procedure (if possible through self-regulation) as well as of a system to block access via ISPs in serious copyright infringement cases (see link to proposals here).
Between 2001 and 2008, the federal government examined the opportunity to propose new rules governing the criminal liability of ISPs. However, it came to the conclusion that the current regulatory framework is appropriate to efficiently fight against criminal activities over the Internet. In addition, new rules would face the risk of being too rapidly outdated given the fast development of technologies in this sector. Also, the creation of immunities may inadequately serve the interests of ISPs by freeing them excessively from their liability.