Iconic anti-piracy campaign under fire for allegedly using pirated font

Sunday World

29-04-2025

The designer of the original font said he finds the whole thing 'hilarious'
The campaign has become a piece of pop-culture history
An iconic anti-piracy campaign is under fire after it was alleged that the font used was pirated itself.
The advertisement, which is etched into the minds of anyone of a certain vintage, appeared before the trailers on videos, DVDS and in cinemas from 2004 to 2008.
Warning punters not to illegally reproduce a copy of any films, it featured punchy music as text, such as 'you wouldn't steal a car' and 'you wouldn't steal a handbag' flashed on screen following a depiction of each act.
'Piracy. It's a crime,' the final message read, designed to deter viewers from making a copy of whatever film they were watching.
The ads became a piece of pop-culture history and have been mocked relentlessly for years since their first release.
It was also jeered in the IT Crowd episode 'Moss and the German' when they re-created the ad, adding even more absurd crimes such as stealing a baby, and shooting a policeman before going to the toilet in his cap.
Now, a Bluesky user has alleged that the font used in the marketing campaign was pirated after running a screenshot of the text through online software to detect the font used.
The original font, FF Confidential, was created by Just Van Rossum in 1992, but it was allegedly cloned and released as a font called XBand-Rough.
While this version of the font was free, the original one was not.
The social media user claims that the pirated XBand-Rough was used in the anti-piracy ads, and not the original one.
Speaking about the irony, Van Rossum told TorrentFreak, an online blog that reports on copyright infringements among other things, that he found the whole thing 'hilarious.'
'I knew my font was used for the campaign and that a pirated clone named XBand-Rough existed,' he said.
'I did not know that the campaign used XBand-Rough and not FF Confidential, though. So this fact is new to me, and I find it hilarious.'
He also told Sky News that the irony was 'precious.'
"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.'
Despite this there is no evidence to suggest that the designers of the marketing campaign were aware that the font they used was pirated.
In a statement, one of the producers of the campaign Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) said it pre-dated anyone who currently works there and so could not comment.4.6k