The ad, filmed in a crime-thriller style, features statements like, ‘You wouldn’t steal a car, you wouldn’t steal a handbag’ with background music that you can hear as you read those words.

The ads, which were played before movies and placed on DVDS around the world, warning against piracy, were designed to strike fear into their viewers to make them think twice about burning a copy of a film or TV show.

But it turns out, the grungey font may have been pirated from Dutch typeface designer Just Van Rossum.

Van Rossum designed the font called FF Confidential in 1992. It was then allegedly illegally cloned and released as the font XBand-Rough.

A Bluesky user ran an image from the campaign through an online software to see which font was used.

The user revealed that the campaign used the pirated font instead of Rossum’s licensed font.

Despite the revelation, there is no evidence to suggest that the campaign creators were aware that the font was pirated, as copies of the font circulated the internet at the time.

"I had known about the 'illegal clone’ of my font before, but I didn't know that that was the one used in the campaign,” Van Rossum told Sky News.

"The campaign has always had the wrong tone, which (to me) explains the level of fun that has been had at its expense. The irony of it having used a pirated font is just precious."