The government announced today that the “Notice and Notice” provisions of the Copyright Modernization Act will come into force in January 2015 without additional regulations.

[Update: “Notice and Notice” provisions were published in the Canada Gazette on July 2, 2015, to come into force six months later on January 2, 2015]

With today’s announcement and the coming into force of the Notice and Notice provisions, all of the sections of the Copyright Modernization Act will be in force. The sections affected by today’s announcement are Sections 41.25, 41.26 and 41.27(3) of the Copyright Modernization Act under the heading, “Provisions Respecting Providers of Network Services or Information Location Tools” (see DOJ website for text). According to the announcement the sections will come into force “six months following publication of the Order in Council”. [Update: According to text of the Order in Council, the coming into force date will be six months from publication in the Canada Gazette.]

The sections require ISPs to forward notices of copyright infringement to the person identified as soon as feasible and retain records identifying the person. Without enabling regulations, ISPs will not be permitted to charge for forwarding the notice (s41.26(2)).

These Notice and Notice provisions are described as a “made-in-Canada solution” to contrast the provisions with the rules in other jurisdictions which provide for “Notice and Take down” rules.

Last month, the government ratified the WIPO Copyright Treaty and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty which triggered the coming into force on August 13, 2014 of other sections of the Copyright Modernization Act (see my earlier blog post).