Under the Copyright Act, rightsholders may give notice of claimed infringement to ISPs (s. 41.25 [1]), who must then forward the notice to the alleged infringer (s. 41.26[1][a]), and retain records that would allow the identity of the alleged infringer to be determined (s. 41.26[1][b]). Unless stated otherwise by regulation, ISPs may not charge fees for complying with these obligations (s. 41.26[2]).
This notice-and-notice regime does not require ISPs to disclose the identity of the alleged infringer. Rightsholders must obtain a Norwich order to compel identity disclosure. ISPs may be compensated for reasonable costs of compliance with Norwich orders.
In Rogers v. Voltage, the Supreme Court affirmed that ISPs are not entitled to compensation for fulfilling their obligations under the notice-and-notice regime. The regime implicitly requires ISPs to: determine, for notice-forwarding purposes, the person to whom the IP address belongs; verify that they have done so accurately; and verify the accuracy of their records to permit identity and physical address identification.
However, the Court found that the regime does not require ISPs to actually determine the name and physical address of the alleged infringer. It held that, as this obligation only arises following a Norwich order, ISPs may be reasonably compensated for doing so.