Iconic anti-piracy campaign may have used a pirated font

You Wouldn’t Steal a Font? A legendary anti-piracy ad from the early 2000s has made headlines after it allegedly used a pirated font. 

If you grew up watching shows and movies in the early 2000s, then chances are, you’ll remember the “You wouldn’t Steal a Car” ad. This iconic line was part of an anti-piracy campaign, which debuted in 2004 and played in cinemas and on home media. It famously compared pirating films to stealing cars, handbags, and physical media. 

However, over a decade later, the legendary “You wouldn’t Steal a Car” campaign has now made headlines for exactly the thing it tried to stop. Yes, in an ironic turn of events, it appears the ad may have used a pirated font. 

Iconic anti-piracy ad may have pirated a font

As reported by Sky News, the typeface used in the ad looks eerily similar to a font created by designer Just van Rossum. Bluesky user Rib even went as far as to extract the font from an old “You wouldn’t Steal a Car” PDF, only to find the font used was from a pirated font called XBand-Rough.  

An article published by PC Gamer also noted that journalist Melissa Lewis reached out to van Rossum, where he mentioned that XBand Rough is an “illegal clone” of his font FF Confidential.

It’s important to note that the original designers of the “You wouldn’t Steal a Car” ad may have never known about XBand Rough being an “illegal clone,” as Sky News notes that the font was being widely circulated at the time. 

Even if the old ad campaign does use his font, Just van Rossum doesn’t seem to be too bothered: 

“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,” he told Sky News. “The campaign has always had the wrong tone, which (to me) explains the level of fun that has been had at its expense. The irony of it having used a pirated font is just precious.”