Remember that iconic anti-piracy ad from the early 2000s? The one that dramatically declared, “You wouldn’t steal a car,” as if downloading Shrek 2 was on par with grand theft auto? Well, it turns out the campaign itself may be a pot calling the kettle black — at least when it came to fonts.
Let’s get straight to the point: the font used in the “You Wouldn’t Steal A Car” campaign wasn’t exactly above board. Social media sleuths recently discovered that the ad’s gritty, scribbly typeface wasn’t the legally licensed FF Confidential, designed by Dutch type whiz Just van Rossum in 1992. Nope, it was a knockoff called XBAND Rough, a clone that’s been floating around the web since the late ‘90s.
How did this all come to light? Melissa Lewis, a user on Bluesky first brought up the query in April which inspired another user that goes by “Rib” to investigate further. Rib pulled apart a 2005 PDF from the campaign’s official site and found the embedded font was XBAND Rough, not the real deal. So, the anti-piracy ad that tried to guilt-trip a generation of LimeWire users may have used a pirated font to do it. Oh, I’m cackling.
To be fair, there’s no evidence the campaign’s designers knew they were using a dodgy font. XBAND Rough was widely shared and freely available at the time, so it’s entirely possible it just ended up in the mix by accident. Still, the optics are… well, let’s just say they’re not great.
As for Just van Rossum, the original font’s creator, he’s not exactly losing sleep over it. In fact, he told Sky News, “I had known about the ‘illegal clone’ of my font before, but I didn’t know that that was the one used in the campaign.”
“The campaign has always had the wrong tone, which (to me) explains the level of fun that has been had at its expense,” he continued.
“The irony of it having used a pirated font is just precious.”
He gets it!!
If you’re wondering whether the organisations behind the ad have anything to say for themselves, don’t hold your breath. The UK’s anti-piracy agency FACT said the campaign pre-dated anyone still working there, and the Motion Picture Association and Singapore’s Intellectual Property Office didn’t comment.
So, two decades on, the “You Wouldn’t Steal A Car” ad is still a pop culture punchline seared into my brain — now with a fresh layer of irony. The ad that tried to scare you away from piracy might have been, well, a little bit piratical itself.
You wouldn’t steal a font… or would you?
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