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

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.

"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."

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

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.

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.

Now that's what I call irony.

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

Rhiannon Ingle

Rhiannon Ingle is a Journalist at LADbible Group. She graduated from the University of Manchester in 2021 in English Literature. Alongside her studies, she was the Lifestyle Editor of The Mancunian, the largest student newspaper in the United Kingdom. Her favourite topics to write about include sex and relationships, bizarre lifestyle trends and all things travel.