Embedded in the cerebral cortex of anyone who watched a DVD between 2004 and 2008, is the same core memory: watching the You Wouldn’t Steal a Car ad

Piracy in the UK: the failed war on illegal content

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2024-12-28 22:30:06

Embedded in the cerebral cortex of anyone who watched a DVD between 2004 and 2008, is the same core memory: watching the You Wouldn’t Steal a Car advert. It lasts just 48 seconds. Anxiety-inducing electro kicks in as a girl, sitting in front of a desktop computer, downloads a film on a website that looks like Teletext. The camera lurches and the tagline, stylised in a ransom typeface, flies in: “YOU WOULDN’T STEAL A CAR.” Cue a stock character crook nicking what looks to be a Saab. The last word then changes to “HANDBAG” and “TELEVISION” before we see the same usual suspect running away with the goods. Finally, it gets to the crux: “YOU WOULDN’T STEAL A MOVIE” it accuses, before warning that: “DOWNLOADING PIRATED FILMS IS ILLEGAL.” The girl, convinced, cancels her download. “PIRACY, IT’S A CRIME” flashes up. Government campaigns have historically been very hit and miss, mainly miss. This one, it turns out, was miles off, a wild swing that went wrong, an inflatable tube man wielding a pool noodle against a grasshopper. “It was like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer. But totally missing the fly and smashing goodwill towards the music and film industries,” says Dr Kate Whitman, a research fellow at University of Portsmouth and expert in piracy and how it makes us behave. Created by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (a spokesperson from FACT, who are often credited, told Huck they were not involved) in 2004, it was included on countless DVDs as an unskippable feature. The analogy was, of course, totally false: stealing a movie is not like stealing a car. “The comparison of downloading a movie to stealing physical objects like cars and handbags seemed rather extreme to many viewers. This incongruity made it stand out and ripe for mockery. The repetitive nature of the message on DVDs and in theaters, paired with the dramatic music and footage, only added to this,” says Ernesto Van der Sar, founder of the piracy publication TorrentFreak. One meme captures the fallacy perfectly: “Imagine your car gets stolen, but it’s still there in the morning.”

The advert also activated the “social proof” lever by showing how normal the behaviour is. If it’s pervasive enough to warrant a (surprisingly) big-budget advert, then it’s a social norm and therefore you’re not a social outsider for illegally downloading a film. “It's such a core memory and so iconic. It didn't work because they just made it look so cool. They highlighted how easy it is to steal a movie,” says Laura, a 25-year-old London-based freelance writer who regularly pirates.