Extremely Lame

People always complain about the nanny state in the United States, the grotesque amount of video surveillance that goes on in the United Kingdom, and the love of censorship that’s seemingly inherent in Australia’s government. I think we may have found something more onerous than any of those. Congratulations, Australia, you’ve finally made it to the big time.

Apparently, the Australian government is in negotiations with the U.S. music industry to broker a deal where you could be thrown in jail “for being in possession of commercial-scale quantities of copied music” when you come into Australia and are forced to give up your laptop and iPod for inspection.

Of course, we aren’t privy to what amount constitutes “commercial-scale quantities.” Furthermore, how on earth are they going to tell what is pirated and what is a ripped copy of a CD you own? I have three binders full of CDs. This is something like 450-500 CDs by my estimate. I took the time to rip all of those to my laptop so I wouldn’t have to lug the things around everywhere I went. At the higher bitrate, it takes up about 70 GB of space. I’m pretty sure that would constitute “commercial-scale quantities” of music that I legally own. Or would they just look at my collection and say, “Oh, you have copies of Chuck Mangione and Rammstein, no one would listen to both of those, these are obviously pirated versions,” and then simply throw me in jail because my mp3 collection somehow makes me look guilty? How would I be able to prove I owned this music when my CD collection is in another hemisphere?