It has been pointed out that the font used in the anti-piracy campaign was an illegal copy font.
'
Rib :ms_red_panda: (@Rib) | fedi.rib.gay
https://fedi.rib.gay/notes/a6xqityngfubsz0f
'You Don't Steal Cars' is a video created by the British League Against Copyright Theft and the Motion Picture Association of America in cooperation with the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore for an anti-piracy campaign. Many DVDs sold in the United States and overseas between 2004 and 2007 contained this video before the main feature.
You can see what the 'You Don't Steal Cars' video was actually like by watching the YouTube embed below.
Piracy it's a crime - YouTube
A woman is sitting in front of a PC.
It looks like you're trying to download a pirated copy of a movie.
The words 'YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR'.
A man appears trying to steal a car.
After that, messages like 'YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A HANDBAG' and 'YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A TELEVISION' are displayed.
The next message that was displayed was 'DOWNLOADING PIRATED FILMS IS STEALING.' This video conveys that downloading pirated movies is a crime just like stealing a car or a bag.
On April 19, 2025, the font used in 'You Won't Steal a Car' was reported on the Fonts In Use website, which investigates fonts used in various situations. According to this website, the scary font used in messages such as 'YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR' and 'YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A HANDBAG' is called ' FF Confidential '.
“Piracy. It's a Crime.” PSA - Fonts In Use
https://fontsinuse.com/uses/67480/piracy-it-sa-crime-psa
Data reporter and Python programmer Melissa Lewis responded to this, pointing out that FF Confidential's designer , Just van Rossum , is the brother of Python's creator , Guido van Rossum .
TIL: The 2000s piracy PSA used a font designed by the fantastic Just van Rossum, whose brother Guido created the Python programming language.
— Melissa Lewis ( @melissa.news ) April 20, 2025 10:14
[image or embed]
FF Confidential also reported the existence of a malicious clone called 'Xband Rough.'
2) I reached out to van Rossum, and Xband Rough is indeed an 'illegal clone' of FF Confidential; it's just been around forever and is ubiquitous. I have no idea whether the PSA used the original, and felt too shy to ask!
— Melissa Lewis ( @melissa.news ) April 23, 2025 11:06
Rib then found an archive of the 'Don't Steal Cars' campaign (PDF file) and examined the fonts in the PDF file with FontForge , a free font editor.
As a result, it was reported that the font used in the 'You Don't Steal Cars' campaign was a copy font 'Xband Rough'. Rib describes Xband Rough as a 'pirated font' and Lewis as an 'illegal clone', but while fonts are copyrighted in the UK, they are not in the US, so it seems difficult to judge the legality of Xband Rough.
Related Posts:
