Do You Own Illegal Wood?

John Marking

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I don't know if anyone here saw this story:
The Gibson Guitar factories and offices were raided by armed Federal agents this past week in Nashville and Memphis.

The case involved an alleged violation of the Lacey act, which regulates the importation of any plant of animal material. Supposedly, Gibson possessed some wood that was in violation of an Indian law.
Among other things, the mere possession of prohibited material can justify the seizure and forfeiture of the material, even if it is only a small part of a larger item. (A guitar may contain, for example, a rosewood neck.) The "offender risks fines, and in large enough quantity it may result in a felony.

The Beginning Woodworker blog has more on this story.
 
Seems it would be difficult for the police to prove the material was imported after the ban took effect. For example, ivory is prohibited but old ivory that was owned prior to the ban is legal. Otherwise, all old pianos would be seized.

The police would have to have evidence that the actual item was brought into the country after the ban on that specific material.

Mike
 
Have to be careful here to not go off on a political toot.
Mere possession can be prosecuted.
I have a very dear friend (honorable American, war hero) [his name is Mike] who will be facing sentencing tomorrow, in Federal court for a felony conviction of "possession" of prohibited firearms. The girl friend of a friend of Mike's got in trouble with the Feds. She stored some "stuff" in an empty shed at Mike's place. He had no idea what was in the shed. Long story short: he was convicted for possession of the illegal firearms.
Be careful out there.
 
Sorry to hear about your friend Frank. Please post the result of his sentencing. Obviously sounds like a huge miscarriage of justice. How does one prove he had no knowledge of something in his "possession"?
 
Mike Henderson said:
Seems it would be difficult for the police to prove the material was imported after the ban took effect. For example, ivory is prohibited but old ivory that was owned prior to the ban is legal. Otherwise, all old pianos would be seized.

The police would have to have evidence that the actual item was brought into the country after the ban on that specific material.

You would think that would be the case. I don't think they are actively searching out old instruments, but apparently it's an issue if you travel internationally and try to bring it in through customs. Or at least a lot of musicians are worried about it.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110829/00215015722/feds-raid-gibson-musicians-now-worried-govt-will-take-their-guitars-away.shtml


Consider the recent experience of Pascal Vieillard, whose Atlanta-area company, A-440 Pianos, imported several antique Bösendorfers. Mr. Vieillard asked officials at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species how to fill out the correct paperwork—which simply encouraged them to alert U.S. Customs to give his shipment added scrutiny.

There was never any question that the instruments were old enough to have grandfathered ivory keys. But Mr. Vieillard didn't have his paperwork straight when two-dozen federal agents came calling.

Facing criminal charges that might have put him in prison for years, Mr. Vieillard pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating the Lacey Act, and was handed a $17,500 fine and three years probation.
 
You would think that would be the case. I don't think they are actively searching out old instruments, but apparently it's an issue if you travel internationally and try to bring it in through customs. Or at least a lot of musicians are worried about it.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110829/00215015722/feds-raid-gibson-musicians-now-worried-govt-will-take-their-guitars-away.shtml
My comment was based on ownership of material within the US. I don't know the laws regarding international shipping of banned material.

Within the US, if a material was legal earlier, the authorities would have to prove that the material was obtained from some international source after the ban. It would be legal to sell or otherwise transfer the material within the US.

Mike
 
The point is that even if you owned say a guitar in the us and didn't have adequate paper work and traveled with it outside the US, upon re-entry, if you didn't have all the proper paperwork, they could still cause all kinds of problems for you...
 
Have to be careful here to not go off on a political toot.
Mere possession can be prosecuted.
I have a very dear friend (honorable American, war hero) [his name is Mike] who will be facing sentencing tomorrow, in Federal court for a felony conviction of "possession" of prohibited firearms. The girl friend of a friend of Mike's got in trouble with the Feds. She stored some "stuff" in an empty shed at Mike's place. He had no idea what was in the shed. Long story short: he was convicted for possession of the illegal firearms.
Be careful out there.
The problem is that the law looks at the situation as you either knew, or should have known. If they didn't treat it that way, everyone caught storing illegal materials would simply claim they didn't know the materials were there.

The shed was on his property, under his control, so he should have known what was put into it or he should have found the materials after they were left there.

I'm pretty sure he could avoid prosecution if his female friend will testify that she put the weapons in the shed without his knowledge and permission, BUT then he'd have to show that he never went into that shed. If the weapons were there for just a few days, he might be able to do that. If they were left there for months, he's going to have a hard time trying to convince a jury that he never went into the shed. And, of course, the female friend would be pleading guilty to possession of illegal firearms if she so testified - so she may not be willing to do that - letting Mike hang out to dry.

Mike

[And, yes, mere possession of certain materials can be illegal. Explosives could be one, and possession of certain weapons, especially without proper papers, is definitely illegal. Child pornography is another example.]
 
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The point is that even if you owned say a guitar in the us and didn't have adequate paper work and traveled with it outside the US, upon re-entry, if you didn't have all the proper paperwork, they could still cause all kinds of problems for you...
You can file paperwork with customs prior to leaving the US to avoid the re-entry problem.

Same thing with valuable items. If you don't "declare" them prior to leaving, you could be hit with duties when you come back in. If they didn't do that, everyone would simply claim that "this old thing has been in my family for years" to avoid paying duty on things purchased overseas.

Mike

[Note that this will not protect you from the laws of the other country so check that out before you bring banned materials into another country.]
 
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I would have thought that there were much more serious issues for the feds to chase after other than which wood gibson might have in its possesion.

Seems rather corny to me to have some of these things around yet have places like South America, African countries and many smaller asian countries chopping their forests down to grow all sorts of not neccessary food crops. It has not stopped the sale of the wood to one of the largest consumers and biggest poluters also in the East.

Things like this make me want to move to the Yukon. :) But i guess they will be there too watching if you left a footprint in the wrong snow. :dunno:
 
I view things a bit different.
Im not saying the wood anyone is using is illegal, or if the company did enough investigating itself to determine if they were buying correctly and legally harvasted lumber, but......

I say Gibson is probably up till now, one of the squeakiest clean corporations in the country.
It must have bothered someone.
Im sure some environmental specialist who has ripped through thousands of pages of harvesting data, decided ok, look, I found something worth looking at.

If it wasnt this, they probably would have seized all the styrofoam coffee cups at the company and accused them of some type of environmental crime.

So now some guitar company will come out with a new logo? Don't fret over the frets!
 
I have seen other articles on this and Gibson has been trying to sue the Feds to get previously seized items from a 2009 raid returned.

The 2009 raid concerned wood imported from Madagascar, which the Justice Department maintains was obtained in violation of Madagascan law. “Gibson,” says the company’s press release, “has obtained sworn statements and documents from the Madagascar government and these materials, which have been filed in federal court, show that the wood seized in 2009 was legally exported under Madagascar law and that no law has been violated.”

Sorry to say this but this is just another case of the Justice Department getting out of control. In the last two years Gibson has added over 800 non-union US workers. If more companies move to China we will stop hearing about this kind of stuff.
 
Im just trying to get a better grip on this all.
If someone was given a gift 60 years ago, when they lived in a different country, then moved here and gave that gift to their child, then that child died and passed it on to a grandchild. Now that grandchild travels somewhere, lets say its a small keychain with some ebony in it, that person has to know the origin of the ebony, how it was harvested, has to show or prove it was harvested correctly 90 years ago, was is imported or exported legally or not.....and so on?

does every pen company who supplies blanks to millions of turners have to show where all their blanks came from if its one of those woods?
Does every pen turner in america have to know where and how each one of their limited harvested blanks came about?
 
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While I appreciate the issues of illegal logging I would hope the US Government would allocate their resources to more important things such as terrorism, illegal immigration and terrorism against ordinary people.
 
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