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Music from famous 'you wouldn't steal a car' anti-piracy ad was ironically stolen

Home> Entertainment> Music

Updated 22:13 28 Sep 2023 GMT+1Published 21:08 28 Sep 2023 GMT+1

Music from famous 'you wouldn't steal a car' anti-piracy ad was ironically stolen

Talk about a case of irony

Rhiannon Ingle

Rhiannon Ingle

Featured Image Credit: X/@NostalgiaFolder

Topics: Weird, Music, TV and Film, Crime, Money, Twitter

Rhiannon Ingle
Rhiannon Ingle

Rhiannon Ingle is a Senior Journalist at Tyla, specialising in TV, film, travel, and culture. A graduate of the University of Manchester with a degree in English Literature, she honed her editorial skills as the Lifestyle Editor of The Mancunian, the UK’s largest student newspaper. With a keen eye for storytelling, Rhiannon brings fresh perspectives to her writing, blending critical insight with an engaging style. Her work captures the intersection of entertainment and real-world experiences.

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Now, there are some things from our childhood that will simply stay seared in our memory forever given their prevalence, relentlessness and all-round iconic status.

If you're a 90s/2000s kid, you'll probably be beyond familiar with the 'you wouldn't steal a car' anti-piracy ad that raised our pulses every time we were bombarded with the choppy editing, edgy music and all-too recognisable font that would go on to become a meme template for years to follow.

However, what many people don't know is that an agency ended up having to fork out a mammoth £130,000 because the music was used in the advert without permission. Fancy a blast from the past? Check it out here:

One social media account, Nostalgia From Your Childhood, took to X, formerly Twitter, to dig up the fossil and give all those Millennials and the slightly older Gen Z lot a trip down memory lane.

People rushed in to share what they thought about the ad at the time - with many claiming the use of music actually had an adverse effect.

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"The music they chose for this had the opposite effect they were going for, made pirating seem like the sickest sh*t you could ever pull off," wrote one Twitter user.

A second penned: "They really made stealing look so cool."

"God I forgot how f*cking COOL they made piracy look," tweeted a third while a fourth chimed in: "I don't know, this kind of made me hyped to steal stuff."

Another added: "This went so hard for no reason."

"This showed none of the detriments and only showed people getting things for free," pointed out a sixth. "Zero consequence, awesome soundtrack, get free stuff and go to school. 0/10 ad effort, 9/10 thief conversion."

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A final Twitter claimed the video was 'the best and worst advertisement of all time'.

The iconic ad went down in internet meme history.
Federation Against Copyright Theft / Motion Picture Association of America

They explained: "On one hand, the most iconic ad. Banger sound track, cool editing.

"On the other hand, this ad does a bad job at conveying how piracy is bad. Everyone who stole in this ad got away with their crimes."

Well - it would seem that not everyone involved in the ad got away with it.

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It all began when anti-piracy association Brein asked a Dutch musicians' rights group, led by Melchior Rietveldt, to compose music for an anti-piracy video.

The video, which was originally only meant to be shown at a local film festival, went on to be distributed globally without Rietveldt's permission.

The composer then went to his local music royalty collections agency Buma/Stemra, which is one of the participants in Brein, to try and get back the royalties he believed he was owed.

A murky and long legal battle commenced and came to a head when the Amsterdam District Court fined Buma/Stemra a staggering €20,000 (£15,700) and ordered the agency to pay Rietveldt all of the money they owed him.

The sum totalled to a massive €164,974 (£130,000) according to T**orrentFreak.

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Now that's what I call irony.

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