CLASS (CLS) was a notorious and prolific
warez group
A warez group is a tightly organised group of people involved in creating and/or distributing warez such as movies, music or software ("warez") in The Scene. There are different types of these groups in the Scene: ''release groups'' and ''courie ...
that existed between January 1, 1997 and January 9, 2004.
The group was the target of federal raids such as Operation Fastlink. They specialized in
cracked game
A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (suc ...
s, and sometimes had elaborate
art in the
cracktro __NOTOC__
A crack intro, also known as a cracktro, loader, or just intro, is a small introduction sequence added to cracked software. It aims to inform the user which "cracking crew" or individual cracker removed the software's copy protection and ...
or release (i.e.
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
,
3D animation,
logo
A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wo ...
designs, etc.). They were a global group and had many members worldwide. Class used their group abbreviation, ''CLS'', as a suffix at the end of the files they released.
This group was involved in a long-standing rivalry with a competing game pirating group known as
MYTH
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
. The two groups released strictly ripped games, as opposed to the CD image content released by groups such as
Fairlight. Games would be split into the base rip, which would have as little content as possible to fully play the game; additional media (usually movies or digital music) would be released as add-ons. For some releases, intro movie add-ons were released as well.
They used advanced compression methods (most notably
ACE) to reduce the size of the required downloads as much as possible; installers were specially crafted to use the abnormally compressed files. Many of their releases included a WAVE Injector/UHARC compression scheme, that decompressed and situated the files into a specific folder. These programs were at the core of their rip operation, as these programs (Wave Injector coded by CLASS/BACKLASH) are vital in decompressing the rips (i.e. games).
CLASS stopped producing as of January 9, 2004, by releasing an "endtro." This stated that after 1,234 releases they were giving up their "throne."
Quotes
On April 22, 2004, the
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...
repeatedly singled out Class and five other warez-related organizations during their sweep against Internet copyright infringement known as Operation Fastlink:
::''Among the groups targeted by Fastlink are well-known organizations such as
Fairlight, Kalisto,
Echelon
ECHELON, originally a secret government code name, is a surveillance program (signals intelligence/SIGINT collection and analysis network) operated by the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement:Given the 5 dialects that use ...
, Class and Project X, all of which specialized in pirating computer games, and music release groups such as
APC.'' — Source
United States Department of Justice press release
::''
Operation Fastlink has identified nearly 100 individuals worldwide. Many of them are leaders or high-level members of some of the most prolific international "warez"
ARES
Ares (; grc, Ἄρης, ''Árēs'' ) is the Greek god of war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war ...
/nowiki> release groups with names like Fairlight, Kalisto, Echelon, Class and Project X.'' — Source
Prepared Remarks of United States Attorney General
John Ashcroft
See also
* List of warez groups
* Warez scene
References
{{reflist
External links
CLASS file and information repository
on Defacto2
An incomplete collection of cracktros released by CLASS
indexed on Pouet
Warez groups
Organizations established in 1997
Organizations disestablished in 2004