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Comment by elementalest | Hacker News Reader

They will likely throw a few major offenders in jail as exemplars. For the rest they will probably use various (im-proportionately) large fines to continue to discourage people from filesharing.

"How can law enforcement possibly police this?"

Given that breaching copyright would be classified as a criminal offence with the TPP, and meta-data access is only for criminal purposes, meta-data and an automated system can be used. So once the system is in place, very easily.

"C'mon, seriously? Is there anyone who doesn't know risk of imprisonment doesn't act as deterrent. There are Australian's about to be executed in Indonesia for drug trafficking. Should be pretty obvious."

Risk of imprisonment may not deter some, but it may deter enough for them to feel its worth it.

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> Given that breaching copyright would be classified as a criminal offence with the TPP, and meta-data access is only for criminal purposes, meta-data and an automated system can be used. So once the system is in place, very easily.

Okay sure. But this requires me to believe that software developers won't come up with a protocol that anonymises and encrypts my pirate downloads, thereby rendering meta-data and automated systems ineffective.

The risk of imprisonment thing is just nonsense. We've already seen people go to jail for trivial 'hacks', yet cybercrime is still a huge industry.

Your tech savvy mates (that's me and you) will show you how to download pirated media in a way that's safe from the prying eyes of the law, and life will continue.

These proposed laws are farcical because they're dependant on the current way of doing things, a way of doing things that leaves a meta-data trail. I smell a software solution, and we already know how quickly the entire world can switch file sharing protocols.

I don't think Hollywood thinks it can catch tech savvy people like us here. They want to catch and deter non tech savvy people.

Sure, the non tech savvy people can learn how to circumvent detection by using a VPN from others who know, but this then creates a barrier. It requires an account with montly/yearly subscription. This also leaves a trail. If enough people are using a VPN povider (thats within the US reach) just like ISP's they can request user details, linking a credit card to an IP address. Of course you could use bit coins, but then this is another barrier which will likely deter many people.

Even if it only works for a few years becuase some amazing crypto software is developed and makes it imposible to track people, they will have gotten the message across to most people in the mean time. It will also likely only be a matter of time before someone figures out a way to circumvent the crytpo.

Stating hackers don't stop from the threat of jail even for minor things, and implying it will be the same for filesharing is stretching it. Cybercrime is fundamentally different to filesharing. Different people and different scenarios.

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