egafd.com

I have recently bought some films from a U.S. company called excalibur, they have delivered on time and are relatively cheap. You can get Ben Dover films in the original case for about ?25 plus about ?3 delivery!

what about customs? as I thought they were not allowed to ship here to blighty.

They have so far (3 times!)

With customs it is hit and miss. You'll get stopped occasionally and usually when there's a pile of other material that isn't illegal (like a mate who lost 6 r1 dvds for one xxx title) so that the (alleged) thieves can have it away with your legit titles. Does anyone believe they actually destroy this material?

Ned wrote:
>
> With customs it is hit and miss. You'll get stopped
> occasionally and usually when there's a pile of other
> material that isn't illegal (like a mate who lost 6 r1 dvds
> for one xxx title) so that the (alleged) thieves can have it
> away with your legit titles. Does anyone believe they
> actually destroy this material?

I want to stress that what follows below is my own take of the current situation. I don't know what makes Customs' brain work (it must be something gruesome, though) and the individual officer can pretty much make his own policy BUT:

Since this September Customs appears to have completely stopped intercepting porn originating in the EU. That DOES NOT include Excalibur, which is a US company. Up to the recent court cases that have resulted in the legal R18 stuff being sold openly importation was, as you say, hit and miss. If Customs opened the packages they invariably sent the "indecent and obscene" letter (I must have about 8 of these). After the court cases were publicised, a rumour circulated in RAME that due to EU law it is now illegal for Customs to intercept material that is legal (as in "non-criminal") in all EU countries. Until recently the UK was invoking a get-out clause in the free trade EU treaties that "individual countries can stop material being sent from another EU country if they deem it harmful to the morals of the country" (or something to that effect). Obviously it is impossible for foreign imports to be morally harmful and the same R18 versions not to be! So, the RAME rumour went, Customs has stopped pestering us.

Not content to live with rumours, I instructed several friends of mine to send me porn films from Holland, Greece and France. Their packages were invariably opened by Customs, inspected, then resealed and forwarded intact with a (yellow) notice reading "This package has been opened by HM Customs, AND ITS CONTENTS APPROVED FOR IMPORTATION" (emphasis mine).

So, stop being Eurosceptic, the evil Eurocrats seem to have saved your bacon:-)

Now, I don't know how long this will last, nor what the whole matter of classification will imply for this apparent status quo (needless to say my friends' dubbed porn did not have a BBFC label). It may well be that this angle will be used to annoy us in the future. This Saturday around 2 pm I visited Maxim's in Frith Street and literally walked into a raid; the police were only turning customers away (still, it was brown pants time ) but at the same time seizing all that precious porn and telling the proprietor that "this is unclassified material". I obviously didn't hang around to hear more but it does fit the theory that sources of unclassified porn may be hunted to extinction for the benefit of the ghastly licensed sex stores.

I have accordingly asked my friends to do the honours once again to check these suspicions. I will keep everybody posted of the results. When it comes to Exclaibur, I have never used them as a normal customer; my relationship with them is more professional (I have sold them once-off rights for some of my free reviews in exchange of screeners). I have read some complaints in the newsgroup, but they seem to be generally reputable. I have got said screeners from them without fail, but they have all been relayed via my Dutch friends. I would personally hesitate importing directly from the US.

Imperator

I recently had a conversation in uk.politics.censorship on this subject, and the guy there was good enough to post a communication from Customs on their current policy.

It included a list of proscribed activities, so I was wondering what videos you had sent to you, or more exactly what content, eg were they Vivid type stuff, Rocco or Maximum Perversum if you see what I mean. I would be interested to know, I was sure you would be OK with say Private or something

Pasta wrote:
>
> I recently had a conversation in uk.politics.censorship on
> this subject, and the guy there was good enough to post a
> communication from Customs on their current policy.
>
> It included a list of proscribed activities, so I was
> wondering what videos you had sent to you, or more exactly
> what content, eg were they Vivid type stuff, Rocco or Maximum
> Perversum if you see what I mean. I would be interested to
> know, I was sure you would be OK with say Private or something

VMD stuff mainly, but also some 80s US stuff. I don't go for maximum perversum and although Rocco can have some nice girls, I can't stand the spitting/tunnel shots etc.

Although Vivid bores me to tears and anybody who has read my reviews knows my feelings about VCA, I like raunch. But I draw the line on yuckiness. I'm a conservative pervert

Imp

My experince is this
I've bought a few films from Danskfoto,and your scene and they've always arrived.Importing from mainland Europe IMO is pretty safe.In fact most of these are sent from in UK.
I've also bought a lot of films from the USA.
I've bought about 7/8 from Score and they've always arrived.
I've bought 1 from a company called Game Port and I ordered it online on wednesday and it arrived on Saturday.It was disguised as a uk tax video and arrived OK.
The only time I had anything seized was when I ordered three videos,from the USA.The daft thing was none of them were hardcore.
Since then I only order one video at a time.I think this is a good idea.DONT order lots at once.I think large parcels attract customs.
Apart from this I think the speed of service in the US is excellent.

Imperator wrote:
[snipped my old message]
> VMD stuff mainly, but also some 80s US stuff. I don't go for
> maximum perversum and although Rocco can have some nice
> girls, I can't stand the spitting/tunnel shots etc.
>
> Although Vivid bores me to tears and anybody who has read my
> reviews knows my feelings about VCA, I like raunch. But I
> draw the line on yuckiness. I'm a conservative pervert
>
> Imp

VMD???

I wasn't actually enquiring after your personal tastes, more to see if you were sent anything that might sail a bit close to the wind where Customs' fluctuating policy is concerned!

But thanks for the reply, at least we know that porn can be supplied. Were these packs opened or did they come through untouched by Customs?

I think I must just be lucky as I've been ordering and receiving video's from the UK, Europe and America for years (never in single video's either) and never had one opened or stopped by customs. I have had the odd one or two opened once in the UK mail system, one very recently, but they've also subsequently arrived intact (I've always assumed the interceptor has just taken a copy).