Contracting out and TPMs

10.91 Copyright owners may sometimes provide their material only to customers who agree not to copy, or use in other prescribed ways, the material. This raises the question of ‘contracting out’ of copyright exceptions, discussed in Chapter 20. Technological protection measures (TPMs) may also be used to enforce these provisions.

10.92 These contracts and TPMs can work to lock consumers into content ‘ecosystems’. The more a person buys from one company, the more convenient it is to buy other content from that company, and the more inconvenient it becomes to buy content from another company. This becomes more pronounced, as content providers increasingly offer to store content for their customers in the cloud.

10.93 Exceptions for private use will be of less value to consumers, if they cannot circumvent TPMs and they must contract out of the exceptions before being given access to copyright material.[74]