Fairlight (group)

:"This article is about the demo/warez group. See Fairlight (disambiguation) for other meanings of Fairlight"

Fairlight (FLT) is a warez and demo group initially involved in the Commodore demoscene, and in cracking to illegally release games for free, since 1987. In addition to the C64, Fairlight has also migrated towards the Amiga and later the PC. Fairlight was founded during the Easter holiday in 1987 by Strider and Black Shadow, both ex-members of West Coast Crackers (WCC). This "West Coast" was the west coast of Sweden, so Fairlight was initially a Swedish group, which later became internationalized. The name was taken from the Fairlight CMI synthesizer which Strider saw Jean Michel Jarre use on some of his records.

Operation Fastlink

Several high ranking members of the group were caught on April 21, 2004, 8 months after the group returned from their temporary "retirement" that began on June 9, 2003 and ended on August 30, in an FBI operation called "Operation Fastlink".

Police forces from eleven countries were involved, arresting about 120 people and seizing more than 200 computers (including 30 servers). One server from the U.S. raid contained 65,000 pirated titles which were alleged to be in the archive repository of the group.

The operation was coordinated by the FBI, the British National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, the German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) and the Business Software Alliance, and took place in 27 U.S. states. In the UK, seven computers were seized and three arrests made in Belfast, Manchester and Sheffield. In Singapore, three people (22, 30 & 34 years old) were arrested. In the Netherlands two university servers were investigated by police officers. Other arrests and seizures were made in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, and Sweden for a total of 11 countries.

According to rumor, the raid occurred just before the warez group would have released the game "". The game was released by other groups (iNSOMNiA, for Xbox and PS2, and Razor 1911, for PCs) a few days later.

The last massive warez-related raid prior to Fastlink was "Operation Buccaneer" which targeted DrinkOrDie (amongst others) in December 2001.

Since October 2006 the ISO division of FAIRLIGHT has started releasing again.

Notable demo releases and awards

The demo division of Fairlight has received numerous awards during their career, listed below.

Records

Fairlight held a short-lived romance with TRSI with their cooperative endeavor, "TRSi and Fairlight Recordz", formed by member Zinkfloid (also known as Uyanik). Together they released several albums, including "Muffler" (2000)" [http://www.fusecon.com/products/scenecds/muffler.shtml] [http://www.lynnemusic.com/muffler.html] and "CNCD" (1995)". [http://www.cncd.fi/music/] This once co-op label is now known only as TRSi Recordz and is no longer affiliated with Fairlight.

trider

Strider, whose real name is Tony Krvaric, has gone on to become the San Diego GOP chairman." [http://rawstory.com/news/2008/San_Diego_GOP_chairman_cofounded_international_0425.html]

References

ee also

* United Software Association — IBM PC-warez organization which released cooperatively with Fairlight during the early 1990s.
* List of warez groups

External links

* [http://www.fairlight.to/ The World of Fairlight] (official website)
* [http://pouet.net/groups.php?which=44 Fairlight demos and cracktros] , including [http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13036 "Come Clean"] , indexed by Pouet
* [http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2004/April/04_crm_263.htm "Operation Fastlink" press release] published by the United States Department of Justice
* [http://noname.c64.org/csdb/group/?id=20 Fairlights' CSDb entry]
* [http://www.defacto2.net/groups.cfm?mode=detail&org=flt Fairlight PC file and information repository on Defacto2]
* [http://rawstory.com/news/2008/San_Diego_GOP_chairman_cofounded_international_0425.html San Diego GOP linked to piracy ring]