Crossing US border with music files I'm legally allowed to possess
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 22 Jul, 2023
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Theoretically, custom officials have the right to inspect your storage devices for illegal content. I wouldn’t worry about files that you made yourself, but files coming from the Internet (or from your acquaintances who could’ve also put the files they shared with you on the Internet or gotten them from there in the first place) could be easily identified as illegal content by checksum matching. IANAL, but as far as I know, having a copy of a copyrighted file which is being illegally distributed and was never released legally may result in you having to explain where you got it from.
Of course, chances of this happening are close to nil in practice, but I still wouldn’t openly carry files those provenance I’m not 100% certain about.
There really is no way for border agents to know, for any given music file, whether I’m legally allowed to have it or not. … How likely am I to get in trouble (as in, getting held up or detained, having devices confiscated, etc.) with the CBP?
There is no customs duty on electronic files. Furthermore, there is an important principle in modern law called presumption of innocence. Because of this, they cannot treat the mere possession of the files as evidence that you have committed a crime any more than they could with anything else in your possession, as implied in the other answer.
To charge you with a crime in connection with those files, they have to have a credible chance of showing in court that you committed such a crime. They cannot just ask you to show that you didn’t do so.
how likely am I to get in trouble (as in, getting held up or detained,
having devices confiscated, etc.) with the CBP?
Extremely unlikely. I have carried music files across borders hundreds of times into dozens of countries (as do millions of other people every day) and I’ve never seen or heard anything like this. The CBP has no way of knowing whether your underwear has been legally acquired but they don’t care about that either. Your music file are no different.
The only potential scenarios which may trigger an interaction is if the music files contain “illegal”, “censored” or “morally undesirable” content that is not allowed or questionable in the destination country AND the immigration officer has reason to suspect you are in possession of such content. The US has a very broad definition of “free speech” which is protected by the first amendment, so any content that violates that would have be pretty extreme.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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