New Copyright Law in Switzerland Empowers Scientific Research

The Swiss Parliament adopted a new copyright law on 27 September, 2019. Amongst its many new elements, there is a large exception to copyright for the use of protected works for scientific research purposes (Art. 24d1). This exception is compulsory and overrules any subsequent license agreements. It allows copying and reuse of copyrighted works for commercial or non-commercial scientific research, and refers to any work to which the researcher has lawful access.