- This article is about the demo/warez group. See Fairlight (disambiguation) for other meanings of Fairlight
Fairlight (FLT) is a warez and demos 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 been active on the Amiga and later the PC.
Operation Fastlink
Several high ranking members of the group were busted on April 21, 2004, 8 months after the group returned from their temporary retirement that started 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 National Hi-Tech Crime Unit 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 rumors, the raid occurred just before the warez group released the Hitman: Contracts 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.
Awards In August 2004, Fairlight received 4th place in the combined demo competition (out of 18 entries) at the Assembly demo party in Finland, the largest demoparty in the world, with their entry "Come Clean".
Records Fairlight held a short-lived romance with TRSI with their cooperative endeavor, TRSi and Fairlight Recordz, formed by member Zinkfloid (a.k.a. Uyanik). Together they released several albums, including "Muffler" (2000) [1] (http://www.fusecon.com/products/scenecds/muffler.shtml) [2] (http://www.lynnemusic.com/muffler.html) and "CNCD" (1995). [3] (http://www.cncd.fi/music/) This once co-op label is now known only as TRSi Recordz and is no longer affiliated with Fairlight.
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