In some European countries, the authorities are taking rigorous action against film and music piracy. Even downloading a single file can lead to fines, criminal proceedings and warnings.
In Switzerland, the legal situation is somewhat different. Here, you can download or stream certain content from the internet without paying for it under certain circumstances.
source: With P2P law, Switzerland reaffirms its commitment to privacy
What makes Software different? Is there specific law for it?
I found a number of articles specifically stating that video games and software remain illegal. Unfortunately I couldn’t pinpoint the specific part of the law as they appear to br written in French and was running into hurdles with Google Translate character limits that I couldn’t be bothered to work around.
I’m not sure if it’s explicitly illegal or if music, videos, etc are explicitly exempted, or if software etc is different due to terms of service for example.
Furthermore, it’s illegal for anyone to record your IP address torrenting a work and track you down that way as it violates Swiss data protection laws.
There is a specific paragraph in the law stating that computer programms are exempt from private use:
“Dieser Artikel findet keine Anwendung auf Computerprogramme.”
So somehow they specifically excluded computer programs from the article that allows you to download and use everything for yourself.
See my other comment, it’s explicitely stated in 19.4 of the Act on Copyright