FACT / MPAA
This Typeface was stolen
The ad “you would not steal a car” is still remembered by many people who are old enough to remember its release in 2004. According to the announcement, the announcement did not follow its own warning – and used a pirated lyrics.
What is par excellence the very definition of ironyone of the most infamous anti-pirate campaigns of the last two decades may have included a source that has been, In practice, stolen.
The announcement first appeared in theaters in 2004, as a joint production of the British Federation against the violation of copyright and the Cinematographic Association of America, and was later used on DVDs and Blu-rays.
The video shows people stealing various objectslike a car, a wallet, a huge CRT TV – that looks particularly clumsy – and a DVD. The text of the ad that, although most spectators never committed them, these Crimes are comparable to unload a pirated movie.
There was also another version who replaced the teenager to download with two girls to whom a street vendor offered Counterfeit discs.
The ads were used only until 2008, but are still remembered today by many, especially because they have been transformed into the famous meme “You would not unload a car”That some people have begun to believe it is the real slogan due to the, which creates false collective memories.
The infamous announcement, recalls, was also brilliantly parodied in the magnificent British series “The IT Crowd“.
It was now known, decades after the announcement was in theaters warning against piracy, which text source used in the ads was, herself, pirated.
According to, ads apparently use the source FF Confidentialcreated in 1992 by the designer Just Van Rossum – whose brother, Guido Van Rossum created the Python programming language.
However, ad creators They actually used a different sourcecreated in 1996 and available for free, called XBand-Rough – which is practically identical.
Questioned by the journalist Melissa Lewis on the obvious similarity between the two letter types, Van Rossum confirmed that the XBand-Rough It is an “illegal clone” da FF Confidential.
“Eu I knew my source had been used for the campaign and that there was a pirated clone called XBand-Rough. I didn’t know that the campaign had used XBand-Rough and not the FF confidencel. This is new to me, and I find him hilarious, ”said Van Rossum.
Van Rossum is no longer the official distributor of the source, which is currently detained by Monotype, so he has no intention of giving legal follow -up.
However, a Bluesky user used Wayback Machine for the XBand-Rough this incorporated into a 2005 PDF file housed on the official website of the campaign.
Download pirated content is to stealand stealing is a crime-or so warns the anti-pirate campaign that used a pirated source.
