Illustration: Christoph Niemann I'm going to a country with, let's say, less-than-stringent copyright enforcement, and I'm tempted to stock up on cheap DVDs. I know that most — OK, pretty much all — of those films are pirated. Should I worry about running afoul of US customs?
Odds are you can slip through with your precious copies of Spider-Man 3 and Knocked Up, but there's always the chance of an unhappy ending. "We do make seizures of these goods, even if they're brought in for personal use," says George McCray, chief of the US Customs Intellectual Property Rights branch. And don't think a store receipt will save your discs from confiscation: Even if you bought the movies at an upscale market, they're still considered contraband if they were burned in, say, a Shenzhen garage.
If you get nabbed, you're potentially on the hook for fines ranging into the thousands of dollars. Your best bet in this situation is to say that you bought the movies in good faith, believing them to be legitimate. Of course, this argument won't fly if the DVD artwork is a pixelated insert obviously produced on a bubble-jet printer. Still, if the contraband is clearly for personal use, customs agents usually just seize the discs and leave it at that. "We want to discourage the practice," McCray says, "but we don't want to be too draconian.
"Veteran travelers who aren't bothered by the thought of supporting a criminal enterprise have devised some clever ways of eluding detection, such as ripping everything to a laptop before departure. But there's no guarantee this will prevent detection, and it might even get your PC confiscated. Just how badly do you want Evan Almighty?
Every time I write an email subject line, I wonder, will this get past a spam filter? How can I ensure my emails aren't routed into oblivion?
Take a look at your own junk mail folder, paying careful attention to the subject lines. Note the literary quirks — the exhortations to lose weight or consolidate your debt, the overuse of exclamation points, the various permutations of "Viagra" and "mortgage." Avoid such spam hallmarks and you should be OK. That includes expunging the dollar sign from your subject-line lexicon, never using spammy phrases like "lose weight" or "reverses aging," and keeping extra spaces to a minimum. And, of course, refrain from using all caps, a favorite of Nigerian "princes" who really, really want to transfer $56 million into your bank account.
It's also a good idea to make sure your Internet service provider isn't on any blacklists. Often, inexpensive providers with poor spam policies get blocked wholesale by other ISPs. To confirm your ISP hasn't been blacklisted, look for it on bad-provider trackers like trustedsource.org. If it isn't there, and your subject line doesn't sound like an infomercial, you should be in the clear.
Illustration: Christoph NiemannIs there anything shady about buying an unlocked cell phone on eBay?
By "unlocked," you're referring to GSM phones that aren't tied to a particular service provider and thus can be used anywhere in the world by inserting an appropriate SIM card. To the chagrin of wireless companies, which would prefer to keep you tethered to their pricey, subpar networks, such phones are perfectly legal to purchase — at least for the next 22 months. In October 2006, the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress ruled that circumventing a cell phone's locking software isn't a problem, as long as it's done "for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network." In other words, as long as you intend to pay someone for service, you're cool. The only caveat is that the ruling expires on October 27, 2009, at which point it'll have to be renewed — something the likes of Verizon and T-Mobile will doubtless fight.
Sites like eBay, of course, will likely be on the other side of that debate. They make a mint off unlocked phones, which cost more than the subsidized mobiles sold by wireless carriers. "If someone wants to sell them, that's perfectly fine with us," says Catherine Schwartz, eBay's gadget and toy director.
You needn't pony up for a new phone, however, to enjoy the benefits of unlocking. If you've got an old locked GSM phone lying around, try asking your carrier for the unlocking code. It's AT&T policy, for example, to comply with unlock requests from customers whose contracts have expired.
Need help navigating life in the 21st century? Email us at mrknowitall@wired.com.
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