Buying Chinese music in China & customs

[Friday]

I am going to visit China shortly and will likely buy lots of Chinese albums, for personal enjoyment. From some books I have read, I understand that the bootleg industry is quite large in China. This manner of illegal product, I wish to avoid, but I am guessing it is impossible for one to always know which items are authentic licensed products. If I return to the US with a few dozen CDs, all by Chinese musicians, is there any chance US customs might have a problem with this?

[<<恒心>>]

I just returned from Beijing this week with a load of xiangshend and other CDs and DVDs and had no problem going through Tokyo or Minneapolis. But then, I only had Chinese stuff and nobody checked my bags (I was given a gift of pirated Guo Degang xiangsheng CDs, but everything else was legit.)

A Chinese friend recently told of an acquaintance who brought back pirated US movies and was fined $1000 each...he was carrying 25 DVDs in all. I think the attitude about Chinese stuff is roughly "who cares?" and the attitude about pirated US stuff is "watch your step."

[Xiao Kui]

i think ditching the boxes and putting them in a CD case can be helpful as well, though doesn't work if you're giving them as gifts.

Of course I'm not recommending anyone do this to transport unauthorized copies, but you don't want your original, legitimate stuff getting mistaken for fakes, now do you?

You can also download Chinese music from www.baidu.com in the meantime if you're trying to expand your listening horizons.

[Lu]

I did this twice (15-20 CDs each time), no problem whatsoever. No-one asked, no-one noticed. I took them out of the boxes, to save space in my luggage.

A classmate of mine got caught, lost all his DVDs and had to pay a fine, but then he brought a whole suitcase full.