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Kevin Cogill, the Antiquiet proprietor who was arrested earlier this week for leaking nine songs from Guns N’ Roses’ eternally delayed Chinese Democracy, is out on $10,000 bond, and there’s a bounty on his head from none other than ex-Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash: “I hope he rots in jail,” the curly-haired guitarist told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s going to affect the sales of the record, and it’s not fair.” Whether or not Cogill does “rot” in jail (and pay fines, and possible civil damages) rests on the court’s interpretation of the the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, which makes the pre-release dissemination of even one song a felony. The act hasn’t been used much; one notable occurrence of its enforcement came when two people who leaked Ryan Adams’ Jacksonville City Nights before its street date were subsequently sentenced to two months of house arrest and two years probation. But lawyers that the Times spoke to hinted that Cogill’s punishment could be a bit harsher, thanks to the continued bottom-line hit that the biz has been taking.
“In the past, these may have been viewed as victimless crimes,” said Craig Missakian, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles who built the case with the FBI and recording-industry investigators. “But in reality, there’s significant damage. This law allows us to prosecute these cases.” ….
Missakian, the assistant U.S. attorney, said his office would bring more cases like this in the future.
“Prosecution like this makes others think twice,” he said.
Another lawyer with less of an agenda chimes in:
Ronald Rosen, an entertainment industry lawyer, said record labels lost the public relations battle when they sued people who distributed music over file-sharing networks, with stories emerging of single mothers defending cases over songs they could have bought for 99 cents.
“But the public is going to have much less sympathy with pirates” who trade in pre-released material,” he said.
Which I think is a key distinction here. Cogill probably didn’t help his case by posting them on a site that had his name attached to it. He’s said over and over that he’s aware of the consequences of his actions; one wonders, if OiNK had been around, if just uploading them to that cordoned-off, semi-anonymous site would have caused the same seismic reaction from law enforcement–and if it would have given the Guns N’ Roses camp someone as prominent to blame. (Side note: I’d advise his co-blogger who said to the Times that Chinese Democracy is benefiting from the “pre-release publicity” to maybe do a Google News search on this album and see that it’s had more than enough of that.)
Blogger Kevin Cogill charged with felony in leak of Guns N’ Roses songs [LAT]
The United States Of America Cares A Lot About Democracy [Antiquiet]
The issue isn’t whether this is/isn’t a crime- it clearly is. The issue is what the advisory sentencing guideline is under the federal sentencing guideline. Under the guidelines, it’s a fairly leinent sentence, unless the court determines that the “loss” resulted from the posting of the tracks is more then, say, half a million bucks or so- then his sentence should go up.
That said, federal courts have shown reluctance to adopt hypothetical loss value in white collar fraud cases, so my thought is that he’ll end up with a light-ish sentence.
But to answer the question- the LA US Attorney does not bother bringing a case like this unless they are trying to “make an example” of someone. That much is obvious.
What the hell does Slash care for? Douche.
To be fair, I heard those songs and they were terrible. This guy did the world a public service by showing how shitty the album would be. They should put of statue of him in the park.
While I would agree that this is a crime, an attempt to “guesstimate” supposed “loss” from this event is an untenable position. You see, friends, what Axl & Co. stand to gain from this whole debacle is unlimited free press for their mediocre project, something which money cannot buy.
All I can say is that someone at the US Attorney’s office in Los Angeles must be up for election or promotion. No other reason to blow this out of proportion the way they have.
What I haven’t heard is this: how did Skwerl actually obtain these mastered versions?
Also, Maura, the pre-release hype that you referred to isn’t really pre-release hype — it’s waiting game hype, indicating that people will still be surprised to hear that the record is actually seeing the light of day.
I am not this guy’s co-blogger either.
@loudersoft: It’s still getting the name of the album, and the band, into the press. I don’t think that Brittany is making that semantic distinction when she talks about the leak being good for the band.
So, if this goes to trial, wouldn’t the recordings be entered as evidence, giving us all a chance to hear this stuff? Not that we’d necessarily want to …
Perhaps it could be on Court TV. Good free PR. Day after day.
Just wondering.
As someone else mentioned in this article, any press this album gets is a good thing. And to Ronald Rosen’s quote above, I think it’s because the industry has become so notorious for suing grandmothers that people are not going to side with the industry in this case either. Read the comments on any non-music orientated blog or site when something about the RIAA or major labels or even just the music industry as a whole comes up. The damage is done. The general public sees the entire industry as money grubbing and suing their fans. There’s no sympathy for anything doing with big music, even when they are in the right.
It’s all bullshit! Axl Rose needs to buy a new carpet for putting on his head!
+1 for leaking = keeping GnR in the media.
Until the tracks had been leaked I had thought Axl had thrown in the towel truthfully. These leaks probably generated more buzz than any “legit” effort could.
If lawyers seriously pursue harsh penalties, I’ll just have to dismiss GnR as being “Metallica-Irrelevant”, and add them to my “do not buy” list.
That would kinda be a sad day…