I'm pretty sure they don't. The post office wil ask you what it is ans I think if it's from a personal addy and that it's a 'gift' they just let it go through.

In general they won't, there's a lot of legislation covering this sort of thing, and interfering with the mail (without a pile of authorisations *this*big*) is very illegal.

Well I sent some cd's into the UK from The Netherlands and the receiving side told me that the package had been repacked with stickers saying "opened by customs".

Also when getting some stuff sent to me from the US customs here in NL got their hands on it as they didn't totally agree with the value assigned to the package. So it does happen.

Best tip I can give you is:
- Send it as a gif
- Declare a value of under 10 pounds (this will also save the other side to have to pay import duties and handling fees for clearing it in)

Other tip don't write on the cd what it is

Thanks for the tips and your thoughts....

Well i do intend to send it as a gift, because that's what it is essentially. Ray has made a copy of the cover so i could take that out of the case... and it's definitely worth less than ten pounds or dollars or whatever... I think what i'm unsure of is if the cashier at the post office asks what type of gift it is and i'm a hopeless liar

I think whatelse i might do is wrap it up with some pretty wrapping paper too before putting it in the envelope it'll be travelling in

Thanks again everyone

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by Keenangel
I think what i'm unsure of is if the cashier at the post office asks what type of gift it is and i'm a hopeless liar

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The cashier at the Post Office is not going to interogate you. It's not their job and none of their business what you are sending. All they will do is make sure that you have completed the documentation (ie filled out and stuck on the customs declaration), 'gift' is a perfectly adequate description for something of that low value.

Technically you are breaking copyright laws doing this. it might be better to send your friendthe original and you keep the copy.

Her Majesty's Customs and Excise officers basically can open anything they want as it goes in and out of the country.

Chances are though that they're moreintrested in looking for drugs and bombs than illegally copied music.

MonSTeR, i am aware of that. And i've thought long and hard about it. My friend can't get this CD anywhere and doesn't use Kazaa or WinMX. Plus my CD is a copy itself.

I'll also say that I know of HUGE copyright violations that go on that FACT and the Copyright licensing people know about, and are happy to leave alone.

So in truth I wouldn't worry too much.

Lets ask another question.

Has anyone actually heard of any action taken in the event of someone sending a copied CD to a friend. I haven't.

Well proving it is copyright breach with online dowload services which allow you to burn it away. Which would than allow you to give them away as a gift. Also under UK copyright law if I recall correctly there is a facility to make a personal backup of cds you have bought to for example play in your car cd player etc. Which in effect wouldn't make sending a copy of a cd somewhere which you have officially bought copyright breach by default aslong as the other person doesn't use it than it's just a personal copy in another location for safe keeping.

And I guess the same applies to cds as it does to photos..... you never keep the photo's + original film in the same place just in case something happens to one of them as if they are in the same place you lose both.

Btw it's also perfectly legal to rip your cd to another format (for example high quality mp3) for personal use in your mp3 player. And if you are afraid your booklet gets damaged you can scan these and store them in jpeg format so you can print them again at your own convience.

If you have adsl or other types of broadband storing 100-120mb (size of high quality mp3 cd rip) of data in a secundairy location for safekeeping would take (256kbit upstream) about 50 minutes - 1 hour. This would make your data available to you from everywhere on this planet which has an internet connection and you can than burn the data back to cd if you have a cd burner at that location.

Also you might have noticed that most instant messaging clients nowadays come with photo / file sending capability.

Of course all these facts should be seen seperatly of each other and should in no way be combined for breaching of copyright.