Iconic anti-piracy ad apparently used stolen font

One of the most iconic anti-piracy campaigns of the 2000s is currently experiencing a twist of complete irony. People online have discovered that material released by the campaign used a pirated version of a licensable font.

BlueSky user @Rib ran a PDF of a brochure from the infamous “You wouldn’t steal a car” anti-piracy campaign through FontForge confirm Melissa Lewis’s post about whether the font is FF Confidential, created by Just van Rossum, or the illegal copy XBAND Rough. Turns out the anti-piracy campaign used the illegal copy. Whoops.

The brochure in question, titled DVD Piracy & Serious Crime: The Evidence,was created in 2005, and details several cases of U.K. police solving cases of piracy which involved much more serious crimes. One of these crimes involved the seizure of 3,000 DVDs, ‘Class A’ drugs, cannabis, and CDs alongside computer games and equipment.

TorrentFreak also discovered that two brochures listed on the website (you can find the site through the Wayback Machine) use the knockoff font.

The legendary ad debuted in 2004 and featured sayings like “You wouldn’t steal a car” or “You wouldn’t steal a handbag” alongside a girl attempting to download a movie online. The ads aimed to deter people from downloading music and movies online.

File-sharing piracy was especially prevalent in Canada. A 2009 study from BayTSP, published by the CBC, listed Canada as seventh overall in 2008 for file-sharing piracy, with 3.3 million infractions.

According to an interview on TorrentFreak, van Rossum found the whole situation hilarious and did not know that the brand used XBAND Rough initially. He did know about the knockoff’s existence and that the campaign used his font in its commercials, although he could not confirm whether they licensed his font for the commercials.

Source: Gizmondo

Header image credit: Wikipedia