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Rh extent to which library patrons are allowed, in these Member States, to consult digital material on the library network is therefore unclear. However, considering the default nature of this provision and the fact that its application is most often overridden by contract, libraries advocate for specific contracts or licenses which, without creating an imbalance, would take account of their specific role in the dissemination of knowledge.

3. Technological Protection Measures in Directive 2001/29/EC

The emergence of the digital network environment as a commercially viable platform for the distribution of copyright protected content sparked, in the early 1990s, the need on the part of rights holders to increase legal protection in order to safeguard content from unauthorised access and use. At the international level, the call for the recognition of legal protection for TPMs became particularly vibrant during the last phase of the negotiations leading to the adoption of the WIPO Internet Treaties in December 1996. Indeed, in the preamble to the WIPO Copyright Treaties (WCT), the Contracting Parties said to recognise “the need to introduce new international rules (…) in order to provide adequate solutions to the questions raised by new economic, social, cultural and technological developments”. This Treaty, together with the WIPO Performers and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), introduced a new form of protection to the benefit of rights holders by establishing, for the first time in an international copyright instrument, that technological measures used by authors and related right holders to protect their works or related subject matter enjoy independent protection.

3.1 General remarks

Article 6 on the legal protection of TPMs turned out to be one of the most intricate and controversial provisions of the entire Information Society Directive. Its complexity is also reflected at the national level. In this context, the question arises whether the provision offers sufficient legal certainty to allow users to know what they can and cannot do with