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, Super NES 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.

Beginning

FairLight became known for their fast cracks. The secret was that Strider worked in a computer store where he got the latest games. He then bribed a train conductor to transport the games from Malmö to Ronneby where Gollum cracked the game and sent it back in the same way. That way they could get releases out faster than other groups.

Records

FairLight had a short-lived collaboration with TRSI with their cooperative endeavor TRSi and Fairlight Recordz, formed by member Zinkfloid (also known as Uyanik) and Raven from FairLight. The groups released several albums under their brand name "TRSI & FairLight Recordz", including Muffler (2000) [https://web.archive.org/web/20050222112126/http://www.fusecon.com/products/scenecds/muffler.shtml] [http://www.lynnemusic.com/muffler.html] and CNCD (1995). [http://www.cncd.fi/music/]

Later lives

, Magnus "Pantaloon" Sjöberg works as lead software engineer at Digital Illusions. Pontus "Bacchus" Berg works in telecom. Fredrik "Gollum" Kahl is now professor in mathematics at Lund University. Per "Zike" Carlbring is a professor in clinical psychology at Stockholm University.

See also

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

References

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In brief, Computer Fraud & Security, 2004, Vol.2004(5), pp.3-3

"UK NHTCU crack piracy gang

The UK National Hi-tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) has penetrated an international piracy gang which has led to the arrest of three British men suspected of being members of the software piracy gang, ‘FairLight.’ The NHTCU seized 200 computers globally and 30 computer servers, one of which contained 65, 000 pirate titles. The operation, concentrated on the online distribution of games, music and movies. The crackdown, which was conducted in alliance with the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), the Business Software Alliance (BSA), the FBI and the US Department of Justice targeted piracy distributors such as Kalisto, Echelon, Class and Project X."-->

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  • The World of FairLight (official website)
  • The history of FairLight by Jazzcat
  • "Operation Fastlink" press release published by the United States Department of Justice
  • Fairlight on C64 (group entry in the C64 scene database)