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26 stoufiville suntribune thursday dec 1 2005 when making your escape from our canadian winter be sure you take along caa emergency travel medical insurance f at caa we know that having the proper insurance coverage t the need arises is important to you and your family whomk m with caa emergency travel medical insurance you receive extensive benefits to help protect you against the high costs of an unexpected medical emergency its an essential part of every well planned vacation emergency trav medical insurance visit your local caa travel store 8355 woodbine avenue enter from yorktech dr in markham today or call 905 3057644 caa emergency travel medical insurance will provide the benefits and personal attention that you have grown to expect at caa caa and caa logo trademarks owned bv and use is granted bv the canadian automobile association knockoff dvds are packaged to look much like the legitimate product staff photofrank king 1 shop localshop uxbridge rules regulations must be 1 8 years of age or older one ballot will be issued for every 2000purchase to a maximumof 10 ballots per person per day per business ballots will be issued starting nov 15 2005 until the close of business on dec 24 2005 and must be deposited at any participating business ho later than dec 272005 ballots issuance will be based on pretax total winners of the shopping sprees must spend their winnings at bia member establishments details to jbe detewiried wim winner draw will take buyers escape raids from page 1 2499 movies for about 5 a piece markhams sharon and harry volk politely declined first of all i think the quality is probably lousy and second of all i dont want to get arrested mrs volk said id rather buy legit markhams bill andonov concurred the sound the picture they cant be guaranteed he said here if i have a prob lem i can always bring it back not surprisingly gary osmond director of anti- piracy investigations for the canadian motion picture distributors association says the best buy customers are absolutely right about the quality of bootleg dvds most of the firstrun flicks are shot with a home video recorder then mass copied and sold mr osmond said the quality just isnt there he said what can you really do with a cam corder while rumours abound that many of the films are industry copies leaked to bootleggers mr osmond said evidence of that has only been found once when copies of star wars episode 3 revenge of the sith somehow ended up online before the movie was released however while the pic ture is a little grainy and somewhat shaky on most dvds bought at image and sound they were certainly watchable and no the end ing hasnt been taped over with elaine dancing as in the infamous seinfeld episode they might not be the best use of the 5000 you spent on home theatre equipment this year but the clerk at image and sound was honest about the standards and tried to steer customers toward the three for 20 just-out-on- homevideo dvds which he guaranteed were legiti mate quality police tell you not to buy the knockoffs because its against the law you could face a 5000 fine and up to six months in jail but no charges were laid against the customers of shops busted saturday at the stouffville flea market raid in july or the six other raids this year york regional police who assisted in the raids this weekend have admitted theyre not really in the anti- bootleg business these days and were just helping the other forces which were canada customs rcmp and toronto police its hard to sympathize with multimilliondollar hollywood studio executives but mr osmond hopes con sumers will look a little deep er and find the loss of rev enues from pirated dvds mean fewer jobs for local film crews on this side of the bor der and even for teenagers working at your neighbour hood movieplex people who buy one or two knockoff movies dont feel theyre affecting the motion picture industry he said but people arent going to theatres theyre buying less dvds at legitimate stores and that has an effect so you dont care about the big box stores bottom line or the hollywood studios revenues but what about the little guy bill bruder the owner of the movie store in markville one of the few independent dvd retailers around these days said he has enough trouble competing with the multinational corporations without pirated dvd opera tions just up the block the christmas season should be 30 to 40 per cent of my year but with these guys in business it doesnt help he said all i know is they cant supply the quality or the service that we can heres hoping last weekends busts help us mr osmond would love to help mr bruder out but he expects by friday most of the knockoff retailers busted at pacific mall and first markham place will have burned enough copies to replenish their supply and be back in business the only question is arc you still buying