Warez Sites Targetted in US

The Department of Justice on Thursday announced a global sweep of suspected online pirates, and seized 200 computers loaded with commercial software, games, music, and movies.

Christened “Operation Fastlink,” the sweep took place in 27 states in the U.S. and 10 foreign countries, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, and Great Britain. Raids in the U.S. were conducted by the FBI. “In the past 24 hours, working closely with our foreign law enforcement counterparts, we have moved aggressively to strike at the very core of the international online piracy world,” said Attorney General John Ashcroft in a statement.

The crackdown targeted “warez” groups, which the Justice Department alleges are the heart of the dissemination effort. Warez release groups are the first-providers – the source for most of the pirated works traded or distributed online – said Justice. Once a release group has a stolen work in hand, the digital files are posted to secure, top-level warez servers – dubbed “elite” servers – and made available to a select clientele. Within hours, the pirated works appear on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

Among the 200 computers seized were 30 servers that store and distribute pirated work, including several “elite” servers. One server contained over 65,000 pirated works. The 120 searches done Thursday hit computer game pirating groups such as Fairlight, Kalisto, and Project X, and music release groups such as APC. The Department of Justice estimated that the total value of the confiscated digital files was over $50 million.

Fastlink is the latest in the ongoing effort by law enforcement to crack warez groups. In December 2001, the Justice Department and foreign counterparts made executed 65 searches in the U.S., Australia, Finland, the U.K., and Norway that seized systems from a group called “DrinkOrDie.” In mid-2002, Sabuj Pattanayek, a 21-year-old student at Duke University, was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for his part in the DrinkOrDie warez group.