Fairlight (group)

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

Fairlight logo by JED of ACiD.

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. Strider is nowadays a naturalized USA citizen.

1 Operation Fastlink
2 Notable demo releases and awards
3 Records
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] 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 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 Hitman: Contracts. 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 have started releasing again.

[edit] Notable demo releases and awards

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

Amiga releases (as both Fairlight and Virtual Dreams)
Title	Type	Awards
My Room	demo	1st place at Phenomena/Censor Party 1990
Illusion	demo	2nd place at The Computer Crossroad 1993
242	demo	2nd place at Assembly 1993
Full Moon	demo	2nd place at The Party 1993
Chaosland	40k intro	1st place at The Party 1993
Love	demo	1st place at South Sealand Party 1994
Breathtaker	demo	2nd place at Assembly 1994
Psychedelic	demo	2nd place at The Party 1994
Faktory	demo	3rd place at The Party 1995
Sumea	demo	1st place at Assembly 1996

Commodore 64 releases
Title	Type	Awards
Drop The Basics	demo	3rd place at X 2001
Pretending To See The Light	demo	1st place at Floppy 2002
Loaded	demo	2nd place at Floppy 2003
Anyone	demo	1st place at Deadline 2003
Emanation Machine	demo	1st place at Little Computer People 2003
Wok Zombie	demo	2nd place at Floppy 2004
One Million Light Years From Earth	demo	1st place at Floppy 2005, scene.org award nominee - best oldskool demo of 2005
Hello:Friend	demo	1st place at Little Computer People 2005, scene.org award nominee - most original concept of 2005, best oldskool demo of 2005
Boogie Factor	demo	1st place at Assembly 2005, scene.org award winner - best oldskool demo of 2005
LCP Memories	demo	1st place at Black Birdie 2005
WWIII	demo	1st place at Big Floppy People 2006

PC (Windows) releases
Title	Type	Awards
Together	64k intro	1st place at Scene Event 2000
Absolut Vodka	demo	1st place at Remedy 2000
ETTV	demo	1st place at Remedy 2001
Virtual Vodka	demo	2nd place at DreamHack 2001
Tatsu	demo	3rd place at The Gathering 2002
Only Kings And Better	demo	1st place at Remedy 2002
From Dust Till Dawn	demo	1st place at Remedy 2004
Come Clean	demo	4th place at Assembly 2004
Fresh!	64k intro	1st place at BCN 2004, scene.org award nominee - best 64k intro of 2004
Death And Taxes	64k intro	2nd place at Breakpoint 2005, scene.org award nominee - best 64k intro of 2005
Che Guevara	64k intro	1st place at Assembly 2005, scene.org award winner - best 64k intro of 2005
Re-Recycle	64k intro	1st place at Sundown 2005
Deadline	demo	1st place at Deadline Harakiri 2006
Meet The Family	64k intro	1st place at Breakpoint 2006
Liquid Lust	demo	1st place at Birdie 2006
Glitterati	4k intro	1st place at Assembly 2006
Dead Ringer	64k intro	1st place at Assembly 2006
Track One	demo	2nd place at Assembly 2006
Scarecrow	4k intro	1st place at Sundown 2006

[edit] 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) [1] [2] and "CNCD" (1995). [3] This once co-op label is now known only as TRSi Recordz and is no longer affiliated with Fairlight.