The famous “You Wouldn’t Steal A Car,” ad campaign drew attention to the illegal redistribution of movies on illegal DVDs, back in 2004.
The widely-parodied campaign had been devised by the UK’s Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), the Motion Picture Association of America (now the MPA), and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore; and ran in theatres and elsewhere through 2008.
Recently, a Bluesky user discovered that the font was a pirated version of a licensed font. Her post was followed by detailed analysis of the original and copycat fonts.
According to reporting by Sky News, the font’s original designer had been aware of the illegal copy and felt that the anti-piracy campaign “had the wrong tone… (and that) the irony of it having used a pirated font is just precious.”
To avoid the risk of piracy in this article, Piracy Monitor now directs you to further reading from the original reporting.
Further reading
You wouldn’t steal a font: Famous anti-piracy campaign may have used pirated typeface. Article. April 29, 2025. by Mickey Carroll, Science and Technology Reporter. Sky News
“TIL: The 2000s piracy PSA used a font designed by…” Social media post by Melissa Lewis. April 29, 2025. Bluesky.
“You Wouldn’t Steal A Car.” July 2004. Video advertisement. Posted on YouTube.
Why it matters
It’s ironic that this could have occurred!
