Comments on: Customs Could Search Your iPods For Pirated Music

By: oh yeah

oh yeah — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:41:30 +0000

"..your 80 Gigabyte iPod" if it's 80% full with songs then 99% then owner will be handcuffed and sent to jail. NOBODY who really works can afford to pay $50k to fill this beast (iPOD).

This whole mess is driven "by the corporations and for the corporations of the (former) united states

By: James K

James K — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:56:57 +0000

I heard this one on the radio this morning as well. Aside from the obvious (i.e. how they tell if a track is pirated), it seems ridiculous. Transferring pirated music over the Internet is much more efficient than trafficking it like drugs via the airways.

By: Nozlaf

Nozlaf — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:03:39 +0000

@ Adam

Not sure how you can claim that there is a crime in a lawful search,

it is legal for Customs to search any person and their possessions when entering Australia. one of the list of items to be searched an siezed is Commercial Quantitiy of Pirated material e.g. pirate dvd's or cd's

now if your hiding the pirate material on your personal music player why would they not have the right to search it?

and as for your comment of "a few songs..." 40gb music players are common if that player is full is that only a few songs?

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:10:23 +0000

hmm, seems like the government has forgotten about the Privacy Act and numerous other laws that protect Australians from crime – because you don’t fight crime with crime.
hmm, what’s a commercial quantity, possibly when one person brings in thousands of cd’s in 5 suitcases and there’s large quantities of albums and the likes, that would suspect, but any individual carrying a few songs on their personal media player is not a criminal. Another example of the incompetence of the government..oh wait, what government?

By: meinrosebud

meinrosebud — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:47:58 +0000

Imagine the time it is going to take to check every file on your 80 Gigabyte iPod. "Sorry sir, your version of 'Listen like thieves' seems to be a pirate version... that'll cost you $18.99 please!"

The introduction of a Music Import Tax will certainly hurt I can tell you! Yeah, 10c per song per boarder crossed plus GST!

By: c1ockwork

c1ockwork — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:46:46 +0000

Umm, and how exactly would they tell what’s pirated and what’s not? Make me run home and show them my CD collection so they can cross reference all the tracks? FFS….

By: McBanjo

McBanjo — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:13:18 +0000

There’s no way to prosecute people. I’m legally allowed to download a copy of a song from a P2P network if I own the CDs. It’s not pirating then.

By: Molokov

Molokov — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:30:22 +0000

This seems nonsensical...

How can they know whether the music on there is pirated or legitimate?

The vast majority of my music on my MP3 player is stuff I bought on CD and ripped, or free legitimate downloads. There's no way of telling this apart from pirated music - they're all just simple mp3s, because that's how I like my music.

So how can they know what's pirated and what's not?

By: Zen

Zen — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:25:39 +0000

Just rockbox your iPod.

By: StevoTheDevo

StevoTheDevo — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:25:31 +0000

How could they tell what was legal and what wasn't??
Will they be requiring you to carry around your personal CD collection to verify you own the dics??