“Mom?” a voice yelled out as Susan shut the front door. “Mom, I taped your show. It’s in the VCR waiting for you.” Susan smiled, how thoughtful of Debbie to remember that. She pulled off her shoes, and hung up her coat. A long sigh of relief breathed its way through her body as threw her purse and keys on the hallway table. Susan padded her way into the kitchen to pour herself something to drink before settling down into the couch to watch her show. She turned on the tv and pressed play from the buttons of the remote controller, and the opening segment of this weeks episode came alive on the screen.
Behind her she heard Debbie’s steps creaking on the staircase as she came down and then flopped down on the couch beside her mother. Susan reached out and patted her daughters’ knee as the opening credits came to an end. She was about to thank Debbie for taping the show, but something odd caught her attention. There was a strange jump between the end of the credits and what followed it. Almost as if the recording had been stopped and then started again. Then it hit her, what she was seeing was her show, there had been no commercials.
“Mom? What’s wrong?” Debbie looked incredulously at her mother’s gap jawed expression.
“Debbie, there’s no commercials”
“Yea I know I cut them out for you so you wouldn’t have to watch them”
“Debbie…” her mother was wild eyed and her breathing was becoming shallow, with short and quick breaths, as if she was becoming afraid.” Debbie that’s illegal”
“What?”
“It’s illegal to tape a show off public television without the commercials” Susan was becoming excited and irrational.
“Mom, chill, it’s a tv show, no one’s going to arrest us for taping a tv show without the commercials”
“Yes they can” her mother was now on her knees in front of the vcr jabbing the eject button violently.
“What?”
“They can arrest us, they’ll fine us, we’re going to get caught” she ripped the tape out of the vcr, her hands shaking as she gripped the illegal substance in her hands, “what are we going to do? We’ve got to get rid of this before they find out”
“Mom just relax they’re not going to find the tape, they don’t even know it’s here”
“THEY’RE GOING TO FIND US OUT” her mother broke out in a cold sweat and was becoming frantic, “We’ve got to burn it, destroy it, something…”
“Why don’t we just tape over it?” Debbie was honestly trying to be helpful now.
“That’d take too long, it’s got to be gone, it’s got to be gone now”
Just then the front door crashed in as someone smashed it from its hinges.
“Don’t move! Police!”
“What we’re looking for is burned cd’s, dvd’s, video tapes, and also cassette tapes, although those ones are becoming less and less frequent” A police chief stood at the front of a meeting room filled with police officers. “It’s not illegal to posses these items but most possessors use them for illegal purposes. After one of our monitors has informed you of the location of an illegal usage of such items, it will be your job to scour the premises and collect all the items in it that could’ve been used for illegal purposes. Once you have acquired the substances bring them back to head office where our criminal evidence department will view the items and continue the prosecution.” The middle aged man instructing the officers stopped in the middle of the front of the room, stood stiff before them and gave a hard and penetrating stare at all of them. “Men, this is your job, your part of something larger than yourselves. Do this with pride, knowing your making the world a better place, because if we don’t protect those hardworking actors and artists, if we don’t protect the sound technicians and stuntmen, the game makers and computer science technicians, and especially if we don’t protect those recording companies, tv corporations and movie production companies, if we don’t protect them from the vicious general populous, no one will.” He released them from his stare and relaxed his posture, “are there any questions?”
Silence creeped into the room for a few moments and then a hand from the back slowly raised up.
“Yes Lieutenant Carden”
“Sir, doesn’t it just seem that we are wasting time, and money, that we could be solving other crimes to help rich corporations and celebrities get richer?” Some in the room scoffed and rolled their eyes at the lieutenant.
“A valid question that often comes up, Carden” the chief said in order to quiet the others, “we want all of you to fully understand the importance of what it is we do. It is about a moral, about protecting what matters to North Americans most. It is about protecting the the individual and their rights, entitling every person to the benefits of their hard work. If we don’t protect these rights, everyone will just go around sharing their work for free. Then corporations will collapse, all the people involved in making those, movies, albulms, tv shows, and games will lose their jobs, lose money that is rightfully due them, lose out on future opportunities that would have otherwise have been theirs. Yes some do become fabulously rich, but it is by their own hard work that they have attained it. Some may think that we are only protecting these people from their audiences, but we are also protecting the audiences from themselves. If they continue to perform these illegal actions that cause the collapse of entertainment mediums, than they will have nothing to amuse them in their spare time.” He looked up at the clock, “Alright men, that’s all we have time for, good luck on the job, I know you’ll make your country proud.”
Donald just happened to be looking out his front window when he saw the police cruisers pull up to a house across the road. He watched them for a moment and then noticed the neighbours beginning to pour out from their houses to watch the spectacle. It was a quiet neighbourhood; nothing much happened there, at least nothing to draw the attention of the police. Unable to resist the temptation, Donald also headed for his front door, and as he stepped out on the front stoop his next door neighbour, Bruce, waved him over.
“Hey Donald, any idea as to what’s going on?”
“Not a clue”
“I bet it’s another case of copyright infringement” Bob from the other side joined their small group.
“What makes you think that?”
“Wild guess, they seem to be making a pretty big deal of it these days” The other two nodded their heads silently, and they all continued to watch as a mother and daughter were brought, hand cuffed, out of their home and stuffed into one of the cruisers. Other police officers followed out the house filling another of the cruisers with boxes of things from the house.
“Better hope you don’t have illegally burned movies or games in your house, hey Donald?” Bob continued.
“Ha, don’t talk to Don about that. This guy doesn’t even have a television in his house.”
“What? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No seriously, isn’t that right Don?”
“Yea, no tv…” Donald was still staring off at the cruisers.
“Well you at least have a computer, right?”
“Nope, no computer, not even a cd player.”
“No cd player? Are you Amish? Have you got something against electronics?”
“No,” Don said calmly “I have electronics in my house, just not a tv, a computer or a cd player.”
“How do you live man? I mean what do you do when you come home from work? What do you do in your house for entertainment?”
Donald shrugged he shoulders, “I spend time with my wife and kids, we read books, Monica likes to garden, the kids like to play in the backyard, I like to go biking sometimes.”
Bob shook his head, “well, then.”
The cop cars had pulled away and neighbours began re-entering their homes, but the three men stood there still, with their hands in their pockets on Bruce’s front lawn. Bruce in an attempt to change the subject noted to Don, “hey, you’re front lawn is looking really nice, very green and healthy grass; much better than the people who lived there before you.”
“Yea,” Bob jumped to the new topic like mentioning candy to a child, “I work for a landscaping company, you see the best grass in my line of work and yours is very healthy.”
Don smiled, “Yea I had to till the entire front lawn, and reseeded it.”
“Say, Don, what is it you do for a living?”
“I work at an auto-shop down on McCarthy Av.”
“The place with orange roof and the big tire man out front?”
“Yea, that’s the one.”
Bob looked at his watched, “Oh geese, I had better get going or I’m going to miss CSI: Miami. I’ll see you guys later,” Bob waved as he began to leave.
“Yea, see you Bob”
“Nice talking to you”
“Guess I’d better go in too” Don looked around to his house, “’bout time the kids should be getting to bed.”
“yea, same here” Bruce turned to look at his own house.
“Hey Don…”
“Yea, Bruce?”
“Just out of curiosity, what did you do before you moved here?”
“I owned a software company”
“Really…”
“Yea, it went under, wasn’t making enough profit.”
“Weren’t your games popular enough?
“Oh, it was popular, so popular people, just copied it or downloaded it.”
“Ouch, and now you’re a mechanic?”
Don smiled, “yea, now I’m a mechanic.”
“That’s really too bad Don” Bruce continued on his way to his house.
Don shrugged his shoulders and called over his shoulder, “I wouldn’t say so, Bruce.”
Behind her she heard Debbie’s steps creaking on the staircase as she came down and then flopped down on the couch beside her mother. Susan reached out and patted her daughters’ knee as the opening credits came to an end. She was about to thank Debbie for taping the show, but something odd caught her attention. There was a strange jump between the end of the credits and what followed it. Almost as if the recording had been stopped and then started again. Then it hit her, what she was seeing was her show, there had been no commercials.
“Mom? What’s wrong?” Debbie looked incredulously at her mother’s gap jawed expression.
“Debbie, there’s no commercials”
“Yea I know I cut them out for you so you wouldn’t have to watch them”
“Debbie…” her mother was wild eyed and her breathing was becoming shallow, with short and quick breaths, as if she was becoming afraid.” Debbie that’s illegal”
“What?”
“It’s illegal to tape a show off public television without the commercials” Susan was becoming excited and irrational.
“Mom, chill, it’s a tv show, no one’s going to arrest us for taping a tv show without the commercials”
“Yes they can” her mother was now on her knees in front of the vcr jabbing the eject button violently.
“What?”
“They can arrest us, they’ll fine us, we’re going to get caught” she ripped the tape out of the vcr, her hands shaking as she gripped the illegal substance in her hands, “what are we going to do? We’ve got to get rid of this before they find out”
“Mom just relax they’re not going to find the tape, they don’t even know it’s here”
“THEY’RE GOING TO FIND US OUT” her mother broke out in a cold sweat and was becoming frantic, “We’ve got to burn it, destroy it, something…”
“Why don’t we just tape over it?” Debbie was honestly trying to be helpful now.
“That’d take too long, it’s got to be gone, it’s got to be gone now”
Just then the front door crashed in as someone smashed it from its hinges.
“Don’t move! Police!”
“What we’re looking for is burned cd’s, dvd’s, video tapes, and also cassette tapes, although those ones are becoming less and less frequent” A police chief stood at the front of a meeting room filled with police officers. “It’s not illegal to posses these items but most possessors use them for illegal purposes. After one of our monitors has informed you of the location of an illegal usage of such items, it will be your job to scour the premises and collect all the items in it that could’ve been used for illegal purposes. Once you have acquired the substances bring them back to head office where our criminal evidence department will view the items and continue the prosecution.” The middle aged man instructing the officers stopped in the middle of the front of the room, stood stiff before them and gave a hard and penetrating stare at all of them. “Men, this is your job, your part of something larger than yourselves. Do this with pride, knowing your making the world a better place, because if we don’t protect those hardworking actors and artists, if we don’t protect the sound technicians and stuntmen, the game makers and computer science technicians, and especially if we don’t protect those recording companies, tv corporations and movie production companies, if we don’t protect them from the vicious general populous, no one will.” He released them from his stare and relaxed his posture, “are there any questions?”
Silence creeped into the room for a few moments and then a hand from the back slowly raised up.
“Yes Lieutenant Carden”
“Sir, doesn’t it just seem that we are wasting time, and money, that we could be solving other crimes to help rich corporations and celebrities get richer?” Some in the room scoffed and rolled their eyes at the lieutenant.
“A valid question that often comes up, Carden” the chief said in order to quiet the others, “we want all of you to fully understand the importance of what it is we do. It is about a moral, about protecting what matters to North Americans most. It is about protecting the the individual and their rights, entitling every person to the benefits of their hard work. If we don’t protect these rights, everyone will just go around sharing their work for free. Then corporations will collapse, all the people involved in making those, movies, albulms, tv shows, and games will lose their jobs, lose money that is rightfully due them, lose out on future opportunities that would have otherwise have been theirs. Yes some do become fabulously rich, but it is by their own hard work that they have attained it. Some may think that we are only protecting these people from their audiences, but we are also protecting the audiences from themselves. If they continue to perform these illegal actions that cause the collapse of entertainment mediums, than they will have nothing to amuse them in their spare time.” He looked up at the clock, “Alright men, that’s all we have time for, good luck on the job, I know you’ll make your country proud.”
Donald just happened to be looking out his front window when he saw the police cruisers pull up to a house across the road. He watched them for a moment and then noticed the neighbours beginning to pour out from their houses to watch the spectacle. It was a quiet neighbourhood; nothing much happened there, at least nothing to draw the attention of the police. Unable to resist the temptation, Donald also headed for his front door, and as he stepped out on the front stoop his next door neighbour, Bruce, waved him over.
“Hey Donald, any idea as to what’s going on?”
“Not a clue”
“I bet it’s another case of copyright infringement” Bob from the other side joined their small group.
“What makes you think that?”
“Wild guess, they seem to be making a pretty big deal of it these days” The other two nodded their heads silently, and they all continued to watch as a mother and daughter were brought, hand cuffed, out of their home and stuffed into one of the cruisers. Other police officers followed out the house filling another of the cruisers with boxes of things from the house.
“Better hope you don’t have illegally burned movies or games in your house, hey Donald?” Bob continued.
“Ha, don’t talk to Don about that. This guy doesn’t even have a television in his house.”
“What? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No seriously, isn’t that right Don?”
“Yea, no tv…” Donald was still staring off at the cruisers.
“Well you at least have a computer, right?”
“Nope, no computer, not even a cd player.”
“No cd player? Are you Amish? Have you got something against electronics?”
“No,” Don said calmly “I have electronics in my house, just not a tv, a computer or a cd player.”
“How do you live man? I mean what do you do when you come home from work? What do you do in your house for entertainment?”
Donald shrugged he shoulders, “I spend time with my wife and kids, we read books, Monica likes to garden, the kids like to play in the backyard, I like to go biking sometimes.”
Bob shook his head, “well, then.”
The cop cars had pulled away and neighbours began re-entering their homes, but the three men stood there still, with their hands in their pockets on Bruce’s front lawn. Bruce in an attempt to change the subject noted to Don, “hey, you’re front lawn is looking really nice, very green and healthy grass; much better than the people who lived there before you.”
“Yea,” Bob jumped to the new topic like mentioning candy to a child, “I work for a landscaping company, you see the best grass in my line of work and yours is very healthy.”
Don smiled, “Yea I had to till the entire front lawn, and reseeded it.”
“Say, Don, what is it you do for a living?”
“I work at an auto-shop down on McCarthy Av.”
“The place with orange roof and the big tire man out front?”
“Yea, that’s the one.”
Bob looked at his watched, “Oh geese, I had better get going or I’m going to miss CSI: Miami. I’ll see you guys later,” Bob waved as he began to leave.
“Yea, see you Bob”
“Nice talking to you”
“Guess I’d better go in too” Don looked around to his house, “’bout time the kids should be getting to bed.”
“yea, same here” Bruce turned to look at his own house.
“Hey Don…”
“Yea, Bruce?”
“Just out of curiosity, what did you do before you moved here?”
“I owned a software company”
“Really…”
“Yea, it went under, wasn’t making enough profit.”
“Weren’t your games popular enough?
“Oh, it was popular, so popular people, just copied it or downloaded it.”
“Ouch, and now you’re a mechanic?”
Don smiled, “yea, now I’m a mechanic.”
“That’s really too bad Don” Bruce continued on his way to his house.
Don shrugged his shoulders and called over his shoulder, “I wouldn’t say so, Bruce.”
