Being mostly distrustful of Canada Post for delivering anything as fragile as a CD, I have turned to the internet for my music.

That said, the 35 page MS Word document downloadable pamphlet from the CBP website indicates that it will seize and destroy any music CDs that appear to be outside of copyright. How do I prove that I paid for the downloads?

The downloaded and burned discs represent about 6 years of steady collecting. Of course, I *did* have some snailed, too, but mostly I have stopped using that method to acquire music.

Elsewhere in the pamphlet, it indicated that records (the vinyl discs---which I have a few of still because I haven't had the time to digitise them and clean them up for burning onto CDr yet) are part of general household goods.

Any thoughts or experiences about which I should do?
1) Boxes of Household Goods: subcategory CDs
or
2) Boxes of CDs subcategoried into those that I (i) paid $30 per plus shipping and (ii) paid $10 or less and downloaded with no shipping
or
3)______________?

I also have a stack of around a hundred compilations. These are discs that I made out of other discs that I bought. You know, buy and entire disc for one or two songs and ditch the disc once you've got the ones you want in a collection of your own---like what we used to do with cassette tapes for taking in the car (except we kept the sources and here I was trying to cut down on the number of discs).

Thanks in advance for any input.
I will not be able to check for posts until tomorrow evening.

If you write a label on it, say " Relative Photos "....etc...It won't arouse suspicions! And, also write compilation of self sampling music.


Or, you can write a label saying it's pictures for wedding guests!

Um, that won't work, methinks. I have approximately 550 CDs of downloaded music. I don't think I would ask anyone to believe that I have 550 CDs of photos---unless I was a professional photographer and was bringing my "office" files with me on disc.

No, seriously: I want to do this the right way---if there is a right way. It might be one of those famous "grey areas." I just don't know and would like some help---if there is help available.

I carried with me at least 100 CD-Rs and DVD-Rs on my border crossing (checked luggage). They were a hodge-podge of photos, personal files, music files, video files... I labelled them all appropriately and no one checked on them.

I dont think they are "that" picky... I heard they barely check anything when you bring household over... I would not bother with that. Its gonna be among other boxes and its personal stuff. And I think burned CD's arent illegal if its for personal use and if you dont sell it. Not sure.

My concern arose from being one of the lucky Canadians who has needed to use I-94s and B-2 stamps in my passport to prove that I was not going to immigrate--lack of proof of ties to Canada in June 2005. At that time, they yelled and screamed at me for more than 2 hours, took my fingerprints digitally and entered a digital photograph of me into the system. They searched me. They accused me of lying---that I was already married to my boyfriend and had been living in the US for a while already (it't not my fault that Wells Fargo Bank didn't know that I had to have some sort of US dox to open a bank account.---and I certainly didn't know because I really was not considering marriage at the point. I opened it because it was cheaper to wire money down than it was to buy traveller's cheques). My boyfriend's car was completely emptied twice before they rammed everything back in and turned me away.

However, further research on the CBP website indicates that they seize and destroy questionable CDs that are imported by the tens of thousands for sale in the US---as a business thing. They are not talking about one copy for personal use that was downloaded from a music site.

Please accept my apologies for misunderstanding the words at the CBP website on the first 4 readings. I am stressed and want to do things right so that I don't get turned away again.

Thats more than understandable, Officers can be such assh...sometimes, they traumatise more people than they really help for USA security......lol

THey are more concerned with bootlegged items that are coming in commercially for re-sale. You probably won't have much problems with them in your personal goods.

this makes me think of some decoratives pieces i'll ship with my stuff, i'm talking about a sword, a battle axe and a dagger.... i'm almost sure they would seize them

I brought about 100 CD's with me when I came here, some were downloads and not labeled. Nobody cared.

I'll be bringing about 1200 CDs. It's a hobby/obsession.

What about purchasing an external hard drive, for example and transferring the files on to that? I don't know if that would work...just a suggestion. If you could do that, it would certainly be lighter and take up less space.

It would. Actually, I'd suggest doing both - taking the CDs and a copy on a hard drive. Not in the same piece of luggage. Custom officers are the least of all dangers here

I totally understand the whole worrying about customs. I really doubt it will be an issue. When I moved all my stuff I used a UPACk or ABF and had to list everything...in detail and was worried that they would go trough it all, nothing happened. Most people say they look in look at your list..and deal mostly with getting you across with the I-94. If you want to be specific about where you got the downloads just write downloaded from this site..blah blah blah..our label on the list personal CD;s I think that was all I had and listed how many were in each box. All will be groovy..

Do what Luz has done, get a portable external HD and copy them there. It takes a lot less room that way. Unless they want to find a computer and look whats there they will never know.

Ive sent burned cds with less than legal content on them through the mail system. So far, nothing has gotten lost. Usually I label them pretty cryptically so the person I'm sending the stuff too knows what it is, but no one else does. 500+ might arose suspicion, but I don't think that they would actually look at whats on them. Putting them into a computer to see the contents is too much of a security risk. But in my opinion, taking 2 portable hard drives with the same exact copy of the data would be much better choice. 2 just in case something happens to one, your not screwed. Preferably sent via different methods (One carry on, the other posted)

My husband's 300+ CDs were shipped from the UK via comtainer ship (with other household items). There were 2-3 boxes labelled "CDs" and listed as "boxes of CDs" on the customs forms. Boxes were not opened. Customs charged us $22 to xray all of the boxes and that seems to have been the extent of their inspection.

it really depends how much YOU WANT to take it with you... there are ways to carry over, from physical CDs to ripping them to external hard drives and carry those along with you.

If you consider the cost of external had drives it's fairly cheap to own one, for all your needs. You can possibly rip ~5000 CDs on a 250GB hard drive-- all at very good quality!

In addition, converting them to MP3 now will mean that you are making yourself ready for the future... where you will be using MP3 (or other formats) in you iPOD, etc., etc. Yes, it will take you days or months to convert these to the electronic format of your choice, but that's why i said: it all comes down to how much you really love your collection.

Here's a cool drive:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/Sea...0&CatId=523

my 2 cents! i know i will be doing this. I already have almost every CD I own in MP3 format. )

I use I-tunes and I think for that it would be easy to get a printout of the account number etc. Do y ou buy music from a variety of sources? Do you have any receipts (credit card statements etc) ? I agree with everyone else that you will probably be fine, but you never know how they will handle it until you go through customs.

Maybe you can bringa copy on the hard disk and your cds and keep a spare copy at home with a relative or friend just to be extra safe?