Ask Slashdot: Can I Cross US Borders With Legally Ripped Media?

First time accepted submitter ozspeed writes "I live in Australia where I've been enjoying the luxury of taking legally purchased music and film and ripping them for my personal enjoyment on my digital media devices; all legal and above board in my country. I'm about to move to the U.S. for a few years and wondered if I would get into trouble if I tried to bring them across the border with me. Any Slashdot been in a similar position, or have a good view of the law on this?" The U.S. has claimed broad data-snooping rights at the border (though some common sense may have broken out, too), but I've never heard of anyone hassled for this reason; have you?

Comments

Can't say I've ever seen it

[atriusofbricia]

Speaking from my own experience of crossing the border *a lot* I can't say I've ever seen or experienced even the slightest interest in my laptop or drives. Maybe they have more time at the land borders than they do at the airports I can't say. I haven't crossed at one of those in years but at the airports there's simply no time to deal with such things.

Re:Can't say I've ever seen it

[Dunbal]

Eh, it depends on the customs officer you get, too. I have pretty serious health conditions - heart trouble. I've had surgery. I have a pacemaker/defibrillator. I can walk short distances, etc, but standing in line at an airport for 2 hours is out, so I always get a wheelchair which the airlines are happy to provide. One day coming in to the US this bastard of an ICE officer who was obviously in a foul mood, starts giving me shit for the wheelchair, even when I told him it belongs to the airline, not to me. He seemed to think I was trying to smuggle something into the country inside it or something. Anyway he sent us to the area where they review stuff, and my wife and I got searched. The American Airlines airport wheelchair was x-rayed. Obviously they didn't find anything, and sent me on my way. But when you get a despotic official hell bent on ruining people's day, it will happen no matter what your skin color. And yes, I'm white, blonde, blue eyes, and my wife is also white.

Is this post a troll?

[metrix007]

For the record, I'm an Australian who lives in NYC. I'm very familiar with the policies of both countries.

Australia has some backwards format-shifting laws, prohibiting ripping DVDs under all circumstances for example, so it's inaccurate to pain Australia as better than the US in that regard. We can rip VHS though.

Basically, it's illegal to upload and distribute stuff, or to be making money off ripped items. If you just have stuff ripped for yourself, they are not going to care. If you're really concerned, put it all on a harddrive. If you're really, really concerned, encrypt that harddrive. If you're really, really, really, really concerned upload it and download it later. Internet speed is pretty fucking fast here.

Of course, having gone through customs numerous times with hundreds of burned DVDs, I don't think there is much cause for concern. I'd be much more worried about the UK.

Yes sir!

[Anonymous Coward]

I cross the US/Mexico border by land every day and I have had work colleagues tell me at least on two occasions that they have had their legit CDs confiscated from their cars, apparently because they were out of their jewel cases. I one case, the CDs were of dubious origin, but it shows that they do pay attention to such things and that apparently they think think they work for the RIAA rather than the HSA.
None however have told me their digital devices were inspected for illegal music, and interestingly both colleagues who were hassled were Mexican nationals. Profiling, anyone?