(Berlin, April 2004) Nowadays, reports about action taken against movie thieves are nearly as common as the weather report. But while the weather forecast at this time of year invites us to leave our sweaters at home, the campaign makes it clear to movie thieves that there’s a harsh wind blowing in their direction. This was underscored by the raid against a copyright theft ring carried out in eleven countries on 21 April 2004, by the FBI and the US justice ministry.

Called “Operation Fastlink”, the justice ministry called the raid the “farthest reaching and most aggressive” measure ever taken against product piracy on the Internet. Within 24 hours, authorities searched more than 120 premises in 11 countries, including Germany, Belgium, France, Denmark, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and Great Britain in addition to the USA. About 100 persons were arrested, some of whom turned out to be the leaders of various piracy rings.

The authorities were primarily focused on software, music and film thieves from the so-called "Warez Release Groups". The action was a heavy blow to such well known groups as Fairlight, Kalisto, Echelon, Class and Project X and APC. They exist to upload illegally copied products onto the Internet, where they are available worldwide for downloading. The copies are stored on Warez servers that serve as “supply sources”. Selected users download these copies and distribute them on other file-sharing sites. According to US investigators, these groups possess infrastructures similar to those of the Mafia: the membership is organised in a strict hierarchy, and the top bosses regularly recruit new members. The groups are well aware of the fact that what they do is against the law. Investigators also gained valuable insights into the ingenious technical security measures the groups use to hide themselves from the authorities.

The message of this latest police action was also clear: no one within the copyright theft network is safe. Altogether more than 200 computers, including 30 servers used as distribution centres for thousands of illegal copies, were confiscated. A single server in the USA alone was said to have contained 65,000 different titles. The value of the confiscated music, software and film copies was estimated at 50 million dollars, according to the authorities. As of yet, no announcements have been made regarding arrests.

This success story sends another important message to movie thieves, one they should take seriously: geographical boundaries no longer offer protection to anyone. While the search action successfully completed in mid-March “only” concentrated on Germany, the more recent action is a taste of the future of the globally coordinated effort against copyright theft.

International cooperation among authorities combating copyright theft is urgently needed. Not only because the illegal products are distributed primarily via the Internet, and thus not limited by boundaries of any kind, but also because copyright theft is itself a global problem that damages the economies of all countries affected. Operation Fastlink provided impressive proof of how well this cooperation is already functioning today.