Revelations about an anti-piracy campaign video will bring the noughties all back for millennials growing up in the heady days of bootleg DVDs, PC roms, and shaky five mega-pixel cinema recordings. In intimidating and melodramatic fashion, it declared how you wouldn’t steal car, handbag, or a television. But, if you’re the anti-piracy campaign – you would steal a font. Because now, as it turns out, the typeface it used was in fact, pirated.
The campaign was the hallmark of every millennials early adulthoods. You probably don’t need a reminder, but just in case:
They might not steal a movie – but they would definitely steal a font.
In their own words, piracy is a crime.
https://t.co/TTb1tp5ILM pic.twitter.com/NAYsVZn9yZ
— Amiel B (@ambakshi01) April 28, 2025
In fairness, it never said, “You’d wouldn’t steal a font” https://t.co/QPohZjOVwQ
— Kieran Poole (@KieranOPoole) April 28, 2025
Stolen font
According to Sky News, the videos creators pirated the font from a typeface created by Just van Rossum, a designer:
Bluesky user Rib extracted the fonts used in one of the campaign’s old PDFs and discovered the pirated font Xband-Rough was used instead of Mr van Rossum’s licensed font FF Confidential.
Sky News was able to replicate this process and found the same results.
In a comment to Sky News, van Rossum said:
The irony of it having used a pirated font is just precious.
Previously it was also revealed that the creators also pirated the music.
Was any part of the video original?
First the music, then the font, what next? They stiffed the crew? They stole footage? https://t.co/VyY0x9O0Xn
— Gerge ألخوري 🇵🇸 (@GergeNick) April 29, 2025
Do as I say, not as I do
The campaign was created in part, by the The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). They lead the UK’s anti-piracy work, and seem to be recognised by organisations, law enforcement, and governments worldwide. Which is honestly, pretty hilarious.
I guess its pretty in tune with what many millennials and early Gen Z’s have heard their whole lives – do as I say, not as I do.
FACT’s own website allows you to anonymously report piracy. Do with that what you will.
The other creaters of the campaign were America’s Motion Picture Association and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore.
Well if FACT is ripping off intellectual property, anything goes:
I’ll be going out and stealing a car, a handbag, a tv and a dvd tomorrow https://t.co/RyNjUBWJLe
— 𝐃𝐈𝐆𝐁 (@_DIGB) April 28, 2025
Ultimately, people pirating a few DVDs and diddling billion-dollar Disney out of some profits was hardly like stealing an individual’s car, or robbing their handbag, or television.
One X user pointed the finger at the real thieves in all their inglorious profiteering kleptomania today. The tax-dodging tech bros and corporate crooks stealing content creators work through AI of course:
But if you’re a TechBro,
you can steal peoples content.Where’s that news story @SkyNews ?
Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta et-al – all using copyrighted works … and in many cases, resulting in loss of traffic/business.
— Darth Autocrat (Lyndon NA) (@darth_na) April 29, 2025
Maybe FACT could turn its sights to them next – but this time, it might want to check the licensing on the font. We recommend Special Alphabets 4 when it turns to bollocking Musk.
Feature image via screengrab
