Copyright Notice And Notice: The Voltage Pictures Case

The Federal Court of Appeal released an important decision comprehensively reviewing the notice and notice regime in the Copyright Act (the "N&N regime") in Voltage Pictures v. Robert Salna 2025 FCA 131. A central issue in the case was whether Voltage could use the N&N regime to serve certification notices under its proposed reverse copyright class action against Internet subscribers accused of sharing movies over BitTorrent. The Court of Appeal affirmed the certification judge's opinion that notices of certification were not a notice of claimed infringement under the regime and internet service providers had no obligation to forward them. In reaching this conclusion the court gave valuable guidance on what type of notices are subject to the N&N regime and which are not and on what types of content cannot be contained in a notice of claimed infringement. Further, in providing reasons for finding that the N&N regime provisions should be narrowly construed the Court of