Most of the amendments to the Copyright Act came into force today with publication in the Canada Gazette. Several sections, including those relating to notice-and-notice provisions for ISPs, are delayed for further regulations and the coming into force of treaties.

Some of the long awaited amendments relate to expansion of fair dealing to include parody and education, and adding protection for technological protection measures (TPMs). I wrote more about the copyright amendments when the Act received royal assent in June. A copy of the amendments are available as the Copyright Modernization Act (formerly Bill C-11).

These amendments have been discussed to great lengths already over the years. Bob Tarantino has helpful identified the parts of  the Copyright Modernization Act that came into force today.

Due to the changes to the Copyright Act, including to first owner of photographs, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has changed the forms for copyright registrations and its Guide to Copyrights.

Also announced in today’s Canada Gazette is the MicroSD Cards Exclusion Regulations (Copyright Act) which excludes MicroSD cards from the application of tariffs under the Copyright Act. The entire regulation is:

1. Memory cards in microSD form factor, including microSD, microSDHC and microSDXC cards, are excluded from the definition “audio recording medium” in section 79 of the Copyright Act.

This exclusion was previously announced by the government during the summer.