Copyright Police protecting our borders
Original Post:
I went to Windsor this morning to buy some beer from the duty-free store.
Anyway, on my way back to the Statesand waiting in line for U.S. customs, they have agents walking around randomly knocking on windows and asking questions and occasionally popping trunks.
After one agent taps on my window, I open it up and start answering the usual questions...(where ya been? whatcha been doin? can i see some i.d.? why are you so damn handsome? etc., etc.) and reply honestly to all. Well, something must have "red flagged" me because in no time there were 3 agents circling my car and telling me to open the trunk, to which I obliged.
Well, I got no questions about the beer or general mess, but I did, however, get asked "What's this?" as one of the men held up a CDR of the Carabina 30/30 set from www.paxahau.com
me - "A CD"
him - "Yeah, but of what?"
me - "Techno"
him - "Is it yours?"
me - "Yeah"
him - "Sir, are you aware that we can seize this and the other cd's in your car that are burned? It's copyright infringement, and you could face jail time."
WTF? After explaining for about 10 minutes that paxahau owns the right to the music on the site, and that I am an employee of paxahau, he seemed to relax a bit, but he did say.....
"If people can be arrested in their own homes for this sort of thing, what makes you think you can bring it into the country? To us, it's the same as if you were to bring marijuana or cocaine into the country."
No, that is not a typo. He compared the war on burned cd's to the war on drugs. It seems that "pirated" music has reached epidemic level, and the fine people that guard our borders are the first line of defense.
I understand the entire concept of the law, but to hassle me about it at the border? Isn't it slow enough there?
Anyway, after they let me go, I got to the actual customs agent booth, where the guy was so bent about me not having a secondary form of identification that he apparently forgot that I told him I was carrying 5 cases of beer back from Windsor. Idiots.
Now that's stupid! I have copies of alot of my cds (yes i actually do won some :wings) and keep them in my car, don't want to go around with the originals. I wonder what they would do if you had an mp3 player! Electric chair?!
With so many stupid copy protection CDs that don't play in cars then you might need to make copies so that you can play them in different appliances.
SO what are they gonna do if I have a mp3 cd? What if I was going through with my family? Since there was no coverage of this new sucarity measure, this leaves me to believe that this would be interesting for the court system.
So I guess the RIAA and other organisations are having the government nail weird standards into the heads of dumb as shit border police.
Since when is burned music copyright infringement? Since when have people been getting arrested in their homes for burned CDs?
First off, if the music "burned" on the CD is not copyrighted, it obviously doesn't violate any law.
I think they simplfied the equation to
Burned CD = Illegal.
Thats fucking dumb.
**Ken stops beating the dead horse; then eats him**
You can't triple stamp a double stamp.
id feel better if they could stop the real terrorists rather then the music lovin fools of the earth.
they can keep it
burn another one when you get home
When you say Windsor where exactly do you mean? Sorry if this sounds dumb but when I say London sometimes I always mean the capital city in England but there are several in America!
Thanks.
windsor ontario--the southernmost part of canada, and one of the biggest entry points for tourists/others moving into canada
it's a cross over a bridge in eastern michigan
Thanks Notbob, when he said Windsor, I was thinking of the one in England for a minute.
when you said london, i thought london ontario, so i guess we're even then
qui.....i live about 45 minutes from Windsor "Ontario".
anyhoo.....that's just ridiculous. obviously a guy that knows nothing about computers + music.
maybe if it had been someone else, they would have understood from the beginning, that we the consumer DO have some rights left in this world, regardless of what the RIAA wants them to believe.......dirty basturds!!!!!!!!!!!
If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain
Yep we're even up lol
Don't cops have more importent things to do? Like stopping drug dealers and what not. Worse part is our money goes into projects like that. I think we should be in control of where our tax dollers go to.
Keep in mind that cops are just trying to slide through their day same as the rest of us, and the border cops (and other watchstanders) in particular. Every minute that guy spends aggravating you over your popular-but-harmless potential pseudo-crime (which he correctly equates with other victimless crimes like running dope) is a minute where he definitely isn't going over to bother some tan-looking guy from the Holy Land with a countefeit visa and a grenade up his ass. I'm surprised you aren't still there now talking to him, you were his life-preserver while he kept you chatting.
(This isn't meant to excuse the actions of the border patrol, just to add some perspective. Remember while a doughnut may be best of all, a cd in the trunk is still a lot better workday than an explosion in the ole back seat.)
Is it illegal to carry cassetes?
I kinda find it hard to believe this. But hey, anything can happen in America.
/me imagines Jelsoft telling stories to his fellow inmates how he was trying to bring burned cds in the country!
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