The Ministry of Economic Development has begun the process of tidying up the details of procedures and charges under the Act. It has issued a discussion document on the form and content of the notices to be issued to an alleged illegal downloader of copyright material and of challenge notices, the sums an offender may have to pay and the fees charged to the copyright owner for administering the process.

The $2-per-notice charge is the low point of scales suggested by MED after preliminary consultation with ISPs.

The document is couched in the usual style with an account of the way the legislation works, a summary of the points to be settled and a series of questions interspersed with the summary paragraphs.

The first set of questions asks what the impact -- negative or positive - would be of not making any regulations and leaving the form of notice and the payments to be decided by individual internet service providers, who will be responsible for issuing them and the fees to be judged on a case-by-case basis.

The MED spells out why it thinks the effects of passing no regulations would be negative, leading to uncertainty and possibly higher compliance costs than if regulations were in place.