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Piracy group resurrects after being raided

3 September 2004 10:31 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 8 comments

In April of this year, a piracy crackdown operation, codenamed �Operation Fastlink�, was launched in several countries including United States, Sweden, Germany, Israel, Hungary, Denmark and France. The entire crackdown produced over 120 searches, over 100 individuals had been identified and over 200 computers had been seized. The raids targeted major piracy groups, one of which was the 17 year old group Fairlight.

Fairlight is one of the oldest and most respected release groups on the "scene". After the raids, Fairlight admitted that their ISO section has been "lethally wounded" but said the group was still very much alive. Some days after the raids fairlight released a "council statement". Here's what it said...

Legends never die!

You all read the news - Operation Fastlink struck hard to the heart of the
scene and hit the FairLight ISO section, but mind that the demo activities
on the PC and C64 are still naturally untouched, as there is nothing to
complain about from a legal point of view on what they are doing.

So, let me underline it for you again: FairLight's ISO section is lethally
wounded, but the group as such is still alive and kicking!
FairLight is built stronger to last longer.

FairLight is bigger than one and even all of the sections.
FairLight is and you can rely on the fact that FairLight will continue to be!

Respects to the Fastlink people for finding the core of the scene, which is
not an easy thing to do.
They are doing their job and we're not whining! In war, people take bullets
- we are aware of this!
If you can't stand the sight of body bags, then stand back and let the
real men do the work for you.

We attack, adapt, improvise and survive!

We are FairLight and will continue to be FairLight.

FairLight IS the delight of ETERNAL might!

/Bacchus on Behalf of the FairLight council

PS:

Reading up on the izonews.com is very distressing.
People tend to think that there will always be another cracker and that
getting the games early is star quality here. It's not!

Protections of today are ones that *very* few can penetrate and those who do,
should be worthy the respect. Downloading them fast is just a matter of a
fast line in combination to access to a site.
Skills stay, whereas the access can be revokes instantly!

So admire the striker of the ruling football team and don't not feel proud
about being the beer bellied lardass, who managed to get a ticket to watch
unless you don't stand amongst the supporters, singing praise.
You have no idea of what it's like to play and what it takes to excel!

We do it for the thrill, joy and the fans, but don't take us for granted
without showing justified respect.

More On FairLight

FairLight as a group enjoyed it's 17th birthday in April 2004 and is amongst
the oldest on the scene, and possibly the only one this old having a unbroken
line of reign on several platforms since it's birth.
Our council has a common scene experience exceeding 50 years.

We've proven the group on the Commodore 64, the Amiga, Super Nintendo and
the PC, with a modular approach to forming the group.

Current vivid activities still includes demo production on the PC and
one the Commodore 64.

/Team FairLight

But it seems despire law enforcements best efforts, Fairlight have today proven they are still alive by releasing another ISO that will remain unnamed.

The online piracy scene has fallen target of raids in the past but the raids in April seemed to have an effect. Several groups began to slow down their "releases" and some groups pulled out altogether.

This latest release is not proof that the group are back as such, but can be seen as proof that flt can still release at the same standards they had before.

Nowadays, the entertainment industry has moved on from blaming sellers of pirated material for sales drops to blaming the internet almost entirely for it. Many people say that P2P networks shed bad light on the scene as they made the releases more accessible to the general public. Of course, long before P2P, feds were after all of these groups all over the world, but it wasn't something we read everyday on the news. We have now become sick of hearing about lawsuits and websites being shut down on a daily basis. It does seem that law enforcement have made piracy one of their top priorities. Organizations such as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have been given so much power in tracking down pirates that you could very nearly say they are law enforcement. It has even been commented that they have more �subpoena power� than the FBI.

It seems that the next few years will be interesting and things may even get uglier than they have already gotten.

Permalink to this article

Operation Fastlink gets 50th conviction (15 May 2007)

Asia-Pacific piracy is still rampant (7 December 2004)

UK DVD Pirates Jailed (1 November 2004)

U.S. House of Representatives votes to boost penalties for online piracy (28 September 2004)

Piracy business booming in Fiji (26 September 2004)

700 software piracy probes being persued by BSA (24 September 2004)

Brazil promises U.S. it will get tougher on piracy (23 September 2004)

P2P networks threatened by new software LogP2P? (22 September 2004)

Scottish man jailed for piracy (22 September 2004)

Schwarzenegger deals serious blow to California file-sharers (22 September 2004)

German police make arrests in Piracy Crackdown (17 September 2004)

11 charged over piracy busts (17 September 2004)

House panel gets tough on P2P piracy and Spyware (8 September 2004)

Australian pirate to be extradited to the United States (7 September 2004)

Lawmakers will vote on spyware and piracy bills next week (3 September 2004)

LAPD busts DVD pirates (3 September 2004)

Shareconnector under fire from Dutch anti-piracy foundation (31 August 2004)

Department Of Justice raids P2P users homes (25 August 2004)

Major piracy busts in Poland (25 August 2004)

P2P lawsuits filed in France (29 June 2004)

Japanese P2P developer arrested (10 May 2004)

International piracy crackdown (22 April 2004)

ShareReactor shut down by Swiss authorities (16 March 2004)

The raid was illegal, says Kazaa (10 February 2004)

EU to criminalize P2P sharing? (9 February 2004)

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Post your comment

Discuss this article!
Toiletman (Senior Member) 4 September 2004 10:57
I've gotten quite a few "releases" from FairLight. Live long and prosper. Now about the issue with the power of RIAA, I really have no clue why they would grant RIAA such power. Would you rather be tracking down murderers or geeks who download music off their spyware'd computer? [ + quote]
Hallywood (Member) 4 September 2004 21:59
Yes it seems that murder, terrorism,armed robbery,rape, kidnapping and the list goes on and on, has become less important than some big bussinesses losing a few bucks from people backing up movies, music, etc. I believe there is a lot of piracy going on and I guess those involved are taking their chances but I don't believe the percentages lost by the copywrite owners justify all the tax payer dollars thrown away for the sake of multi billion dollar companies. I guess if you line the pockets of a few polititians and some law enforcement officials you can pretty much dictate your own policies. Come on you jerk off law enforcement people, go out and bust some real criminals. Just my opinion. HW. [ + quote]
Toiletman (Senior Member) 6 September 2004 8:35
But you see, that's what really surprises me. Why are the judges doing this? Why are they passing on "laws" that will give companies such as the DMCA and RIAA such power? Don't the judges see they're doing something stupid? But hey, Earth is corrupt. We are vessels of sin, but without us, there would be no sin. Everyone is entitled to their own true opinion. Either respect that or don't. [ + quote]
zippyd (Senior Member) 7 September 2004 3:13
Because judges are selected by the politicians whose pockets get lined. [ + quote]
the_goat (Junior Member) 19 September 2004 12:20
today i went to an open air market where they used to sell pirated dvd's but the 21 year old girl who used to sell dvd's had been taken out in handcuffs by the cops for selling a few dvd's, two miles down the road heroin dealers are selling skag to kids without interuption what the hell is going on. Respect to the Fairlight Crew. the_goat [ + quote]
Toiletman (Senior Member) 20 September 2004 12:25
Wow, the_goat, that's just a really sad situation to see. Killing kids or "killing the media industry"? Everyone is entitled to their own true opinion. Either respect that or don't. [ + quote]
indienemo (Inactive) 1 October 2004 2:55
heres something ironic... you can deal crack cocaine/ heroin and get an unlimited fine. you can trade files on the internet with other users and get; an unlimited fine. how the hell does that work, do the math.. [ + quote]
Toiletman (Senior Member) 1 October 2004 14:23
The math is... either way, the government gets money =P Everyone is entitled to their own true opinion. Either respect that or don't. [ + quote]