Canada's Copyright Act handles infringement notices differently from the United States. Under the notice-and-notice rules in sections 41.25 and 41.26, in force since January 2, 2015, an internet service provider that receives a compliant notice of claimed infringement must forward it to the subscriber and retain matching records. The provider does not have to remove, block, or filter anything, and it does not have to name the subscriber to the sender. That is the whole regime, and much of what people assume about it comes from the US DMCA, which is a different statute governing a different system.
The consequences cut both ways. Rights holders who use this system should not expect content to disappear, because nothing in it compels removal. Subscribers who receive a notice owe no one a payment, and since 2019 the CRTC has barred the major carriers from forwarding the settlement demands that made these notices notorious. This page sets out what the law requires, what it prohibits, and what actually gets infringing content removed in Canada.
What the Notice-and-Notice Regime Actually Is
Canadian ISPs forwarded copyright notices voluntarily for years before Parliament wrote the practice into statute. The Copyright Modernization Act codified it in 2012, and the provisions have applied since January 2, 2015. Parliament looked at the American notice-and-takedown model and declined to copy it. The DMCA is US law: it conditions a host's safe harbor protection on expeditious removal, which is why takedown notices carry so much force in the United States. Canada's rules condition nothing on removal. A provider complies with notice-and-notice by forwarding a notice and keeping records, and its legal position is identical whether the material stays up or comes down.
That distinction trips up rights holders working across borders. Understanding the difference between copyright law and the DMCA matters here, because the two systems reward opposite behavior. When content hosted in Canada does come down after a complaint, it is almost always because a platform's policy or a host's acceptable-use terms required it. Not because the Copyright Act did.
What a Valid Notice of Claimed Infringement Must Contain
Section 41.25 sets the minimum contents. A notice must identify the claimant by name and address, identify the work or other subject matter, state the claimant's interest in it, and specify the location data associated with the alleged infringement. In practice that means the IP address together with the date and time of the claimed activity. The notice must also conform to the form prescribed by regulation.
A notice missing those elements triggers no obligations at all. Providers can ignore defective notices without consequence, and rights holders who send them have burned their own effort. The timestamps as evidence requirement is not a formality: an IP address without an accurate time is useless, because a provider can only match an address to a subscriber at the moment that address was assigned. People used to US filings often start from a takedown notice template, but the DMCA's good-faith statement format is not what section 41.25 asks for. Canadian notices need the statutory elements listed above.
What Canadian ISPs Must Do Under Notice-and-Notice
Section 41.26 gives a provider that receives a compliant notice two duties. Forward it electronically to the person the location data identifies, "as soon as feasible." And retain records associating the notice with that subscriber for six months from receipt. If the claimant notifies the provider that it intends to start a proceeding, the retention period extends to one year.
That is the entire list. No investigation duty, no duty to respond to the claimant, no duty to verify the allegation. The retention requirement exists for one reason: if the claimant later persuades a court to order disclosure, the records still exist. Notice-and-notice is a paper-trail machine, not an enforcement machine.
Administratively, Canada also differs from the US in where notices go. American providers must register a designated DMCA agent with the Copyright Office so claimants have a known address. Canada has no equivalent registry. Notices reach Canadian providers at whatever abuse or legal contact address each one publishes.
What Canadian ISPs Never Have to Do
No ISP is required to remove, block, or filter content because a notice arrived, not even material sitting on its own network. No provider is required to disclose a subscriber's identity to the sender. And no provider is required by statute to adopt a repeat infringer policy or terminate customers over accumulated notices, the way termination policies function as a condition of safe harbor in the United States. American protection hangs on a long chain of requirements, and the DMCA safe harbor checklist runs about a page. The Canadian regime asks for forwarding and record-keeping and stops there.
This was a deliberate design choice. Notice-and-takedown systems convert a private accusation into instant removal of the accused copy. Canada chose a softer instrument that preserves the subscriber's anonymity and leaves the content alone. The upshot for rights holders is blunt. If the copy is hosted in Canada and the host is unwilling, the notice route will not move it. From there you are in the territory of platform policy, negotiation, or court orders.
How Settlement Demands Hijacked Canada's Copyright Notices
The statutory notice says, in substance: someone claims you infringed. It authorizes no demand for money. For years after the regime took effect, senders bolted payment demands on anyway. Forwarded notices contained per-claim settlement offers, countdown deadlines, warnings built on American damages figures that do not apply in Canada, and links to payment portals. A US anti-piracy firm called Rightscorp was the best-known sender, and Canadian carriers passed along what arrived, on the reading that section 41.26 told them to forward.
None of that had a statutory anchor. Section 38.1 of the Copyright Act caps statutory damages for non-commercial infringement at $5,000, total, across every work in the proceeding, within a per-work range of $100 to $5,000. Threats implying that a shared song could cost tens of thousands described pressure, not Canadian law. The Federal Court saw the problem up close in the Voltage Pictures litigation, where the ISP TekSavvy declined to disclose subscriber names without an order, was ordered to disclose them in 2014 with conditions attached, and where later reasons from the same litigation acknowledged that the damages cap undercut the economics of filing mass claims. Functionally, these settlement pitches were demand letters dressed as statutory notices, and most recipients could not tell the difference.
The CRTC's 2019 Rules on Settlement Demands
After a complaint filed by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, the CRTC ruled in 2019 that forwarding notices containing settlement demands is contrary to the Telecommunications Act. It directed the large carriers to stop, and they did. The major providers now strip the payment language before forwarding, or decline to forward those notices at all.
The fix has limits worth knowing. The CRTC regulates carriers, not senders, so a claimant can still print a settlement demand in material it sends directly to a website operator. Smaller providers have not always followed the same practice. And the ruling does nothing about demand letters that never touch the notice-and-notice system in the first place. The federal government's consumer guidance has said the same thing throughout: receiving a notice creates no obligation to pay any settlement fee. A forwarded notice that contains a payment demand today is a red flag about the sender, not a bill.
What Actually Removes Infringing Content in Canada
Notice-and-notice removes nothing, so rights holders need the tools that do. Five routes carry the load, and they layer rather than compete.
- Platform copyright systems. YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, and most other major platforms enforce their copyright rules worldwide regardless of where a user sits. A complaint filed under platform policy takes effect in Canada because the policy reaches there. This is the real mechanism behind the DMCA's reach beyond the United States, which runs through platforms and their contracts rather than treaties. A successful claim typically counts as a strike against the account, which is what stops the next upload.
- Host abuse complaints. Canadian hosts have no statutory removal duty, but nearly all impose acceptable-use terms on their customers. The first task is finding out who hosts the site. A precise, well-evidenced complaint to the right provider gets a surprising share of Canadian-hosted copies taken down voluntarily.
- Delisting. Section 41.27 separately obliges providers of information location tools, search engines, to remove or disable the location data named in a compliant notice. The link leaves search results while the page itself stays up. In practice, most delisting runs through Google's copyright removal tool, which accepts requests for any country.
- Courts. Canadian courts grant injunctions against hosts and operators, Norwich-type orders that unmask anonymous operators, and damages: non-commercial statutory damages capped at $5,000, commercial statutory damages between $500 and $20,000 per work, within the general penalty framework for infringement. In late 2019 the Federal Court granted the country's first site-blocking order, requiring major carriers to block domains tied to a pirate IPTV service known as GoldTV. That is the ceiling of what Canadian court remedies can reach, and it takes real litigation to get there.
- Cross-border enforcement. Copies of Canadian creators' work usually sit on foreign infrastructure, and the route that works is the law of wherever the host sits. US hosts answer to DMCA notices, and other countries run their own regimes. A country-by-country takedown guide is the map for that step.
Start with the first two routes. They are fast, cheap, and resolve most single-site situations. Delisting handles discoverability while you work the host. Courts are for operators who ignore everything else.
If You Received a Copyright Notice in Canada
A notice of claimed infringement is an allegation, not a court document, and receiving one creates no liability on its own. You owe no payment, no reply, and no self-identification. If the notice contains a settlement demand, the CRTC's 2019 decision is the reason major carriers strip it before forwarding. Read any payment demand that survives as a signal about the sender.
If you were in fact downloading or sharing something without permission, stop, delete it, and secure your connection, because an open router means someone else's activity carries your address. Do not click links inside the notice; some led to payment pages with no legal connection to the claim. Keep a copy of what you received. A sender who wants your name needs a court order, and a filed claim is a different event from a forwarded email. If a claim is actually filed, or a notice credibly threatens one, that is the moment to speak with Canadian counsel.
Notice-and-Notice FAQs
Does notice-and-notice remove infringing content?
No. The regime obliges the provider to forward the notice and retain records; removal never enters the statutory picture. Material comes down only through platform policy, host terms, delisting, or a court order. Rights holders who expect DMCA-style speed from Canada's system are using the wrong instrument.
Do I have to pay a settlement demand in a Canadian notice?
No. The notice regime creates no payment obligation, and the federal government's consumer guidance says the same. Since the CRTC's 2019 decision, the major carriers have been barred from forwarding settlement demands. If you weigh a demand anyway, measure it against the $5,000 statutory cap on non-commercial damages, not the letter's figures.
How long must a Canadian ISP keep notice-and-notice records?
Six months from receipt of the notice. If the claimant notifies the provider that it intends to start a proceeding, the period extends to one year. The records exist so a court can later order disclosure of the subscriber's identity; they are never released to the claimant automatically.
Can my ISP reveal my identity to a copyright claimant?
Not from a notice alone. Disclosure requires a court order, typically a Norwich-type order in copyright matters. The Voltage Pictures litigation set the pattern: TekSavvy handed over subscriber names only after the Federal Court ordered it in 2014, and the court attached conditions to how the information could be used.
Can I use a DMCA takedown notice against a Canadian site?
Only where a platform or host accepts it. As US law, the DMCA compels nothing from a Canadian ISP, it triggers forwarding duties at best. Platform policies apply worldwide, and Canadian law separately requires search engines to delist on notice. For everything else, Canadian remedies or the host's own terms carry the weight.
What to do next
- Pin down the copy: which platform, which host, which country. Removal strategy starts with knowing who controls the page.
- Match the route to that answer: platform copyright form, host abuse contact, delisting, or court order.
- Assemble proof of ownership and dated copies of the infringing material before you send anything.
- Filing yourself is a real option, the DIY takedown process walks through it step by step.
- When copies are numerous, recurring, or on hosts that ignore you, a professional takedown service earns its fee in time and persistence, and pairing ongoing monitoring with a protection certificate makes the next copy easier to catch.
Court routes require Canadian counsel. Platform and host routes do not, and they are where most Canadian removals actually get done.