Guns N' Roses blogger faces music prison

A Los Angeles man who pleaded guilty in December to illegally uploading nine Guns N’ Roses songs onto his music site could be thrown in the slammer for six months if federal prosecutors in the case get their way. Kevin Cogill was arrested last summer after posting tracks on 18 June from GNR’s album Chinese Democracy to his …

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad I didn't pay for it

It's ****ing awful.

They should be giving the money back to those who did pay for it.

[Cameron Colley]

I agree that this will hurt sales...

...once fans hear the album there's no way they will want to pay for the dull, second-rate material.

On the other hand, many bands themselves leak material from forthcoming albums to create hype and rumour -- so it's clear that it's lack of confidence in the "product" that has lead to the record company's reaction.

[Michael]

Man jailed for filesharing "Chinese democracy"?

......Is it me, or does this have just more than a tad of irony?

Flame, as the revolution is next month.(possibly)

[Mike]

@AC

I completly agree. It was a complete and utter waste of bandwidth.

[Graham Marsden]

But...

... how much money did they lose from people downloading it and thinking "damn, this is shite, good job I didn't actually pay for it!"

[Paul]

Whoa

They really think there are 350,000 people who'd download that album?

[Anonymous Coward]

Level of crime

I can see their point: sharing back catalogue of someone stuff is one thing, but pulling the rug from under them selling NEW stuff (when the demand for it will be greatest) is a pretty shit thing to do. And please don't even think to claim you're "a fan"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Prison?

He should be given a bloody medal not a prison sentence. The heads up on how crap the album was greatly appreciated.

[Anonymous Coward]

A perfect example...

of why the music industry is hurting. They keep putting out crap and

charging a fortune for it. The should be thanking him. He put it out there

and nobody wanted it, so they should have stopped recording/promoting it

and saved themselves some cash.

Axl - YOU SUCK

side note - Buckethead - YOU SUCK EVEN MORE

[Stevie]

Bah

Do the time, do the math, then post a public service announcement on how much the RIAA cost the taxpayer with this idiocy.

Azathoth on a bke. Like anyone is buying antiquated crap music in this economy anyway.

Perhaps the Feds and the RIAA could put their heads to gether and figure out that the problem lies in the distribution model, then work to fix *that*.

Most mp3s have been compressed so much they sound like crap anyway. I especially like the way certain artists, who for years complained about the compression required to get their transient-laden music into a recorded format, now fall over themselves to squash the same 4 minute piece fo genius by a couple of orders of magnitude over what was formerly unacceptable.

I can't believe we went through all that torture with evolving stereo systems in the 70s and resilient media in the 80s only to end up with iTw*ts hooked on tinny crap.

Squeaky music and TV that can't deal with low contrast without pixelating. The digital revolution is certainly everything I was led to believe it would be. Not.

Gah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm

So they are also blaming him for sales lost from all the other sites sharing the tracks afterwards... This is making a serious assumption that Cogill was the one and only source of the pre-released material. I assume they have proof that the other sites didn't also just benefit from the same leaked source as Cogill?

Surely the question should be where the leaked material came from in the first place? Oh, hang on, that would be a record company wouldn't it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair?

Ok, so this idiot should be fined, and maybe even jailed (though 6 months is far too long) Now that that's settled, when do the RIAA's head honchos and lawyers start their much longer prison terms for extortion, harassment, strong-arm robbery, and general malice?

[Kevin]

Promo royalties.

They should pay the guy for all the free advertising he's given them... the album would have sunk into obscurity completely if it wasn't for this court case.

[adnim]

Prison?

Sledgehammer meet egg.

ffs a prison sentence is just ridiculous for this kind of offence.

His making available of this material has deprived some already rich people of some money, big deal.

Ahh but wait, isn't that (money) what is really important here in our western "civilised" society. It is valued above all else including life, liberty and freedom, so bang him up for 15 to life, with no chance of parole.

[Anonymous Coward]

Entitled

What Mark Willis is forgetting is that we have the right to have whatever we want handed to us for free and if the people who created the things we want expect any kind of restitution for that they can shove their antiquated ideas and we'll take it anyway.

That's real freedom. Its what what giving away other people's music free of charge is all about.

[Tony]

'Recording Industry Ass of America (RIAA)'

Surely that should be 'Recording Industry Arse of America (RIAA)' on this side of the pond?

I am still not clear on how copyright violation should or could ever carry a jail term. Surely it is a civil matter and should only be punishable by financial penalties? Or are we going to see jail terms handed out for things like patent violations too?

[Dam]

@Mark Wills

Well to be honest, you're not too bright are you ?

Do you not see a problem with people that would sooner deprive us of the god fucking given right to share music, say with our friends at home ?

How long will it be before you need to pay extra to let other people hear your stereo ?

How much longer until a passenger in your car has to shut his ears because he hasn't paid the RIAAss tax for this or that song ?

How long until you're not allowed to whistle a tune anymore because that'd be sharing it illegally ?

Have you not heard of cases where labels sued _schools_ because teachers made the children sing ?

The problem is not with freetards, the problem is with the business model.

Society has evolved, not the labels.

I'm eagerly awaiting your constructive reply to this:

Watch movie on TV, record it to harddrive with your triple play internet offer. Legal.

Watch movie on TV, forget to record it like a muppet, download it overnight. Illegal.

Difference: a lot, apparently.

[Luis Ogando]

Bonkers!

I'm confused: When my motorbike got nicked I was told it was my 'own fault for parking it in a not-very-safe-place.' When my mate's satnav got nicked he was told it was his 'own fault for leaving it on show.' AND when my nephew was mugged for his fecking mobile phone he was told it was his 'own fault for showing it off in public!'

Now, a record company is crying into its milk because someone distributed a pre-release of a new album and all of a sudden it's NOT the record company's fault for being so frigging INCOMPETENT that it couldn't keep it safe! The company in question learned a lesson here - keep your products safe FFS. This is YOUR FAULT!!

<..and, breathe..>

BTW - Did I read somewhere that Slash isn't even on this album..? Jeeze...

[Anonymous Coward]

1 downloaded track != 1 track that would have been bought

But this appears to be the basis of their calculations when assessing 'lost profits'.

[Roger Lancefield]

Less "information economy" workers, more plumbers, please.

I agree with Dam and Luis Ogando, if someone wants to pull an open trolley with gold jewellery on it through crowded market places on a regular basis, he has no right to insist that the authorities force everyone in the market to wear straightjackets just so that his absurdly nickable product and daft behaviour behaviour remain viable.

That said, I certainly don't condone breaking licence agreements, but fortunately I'm rarely tempted thanks to a combination of running unrestricted software and finding most contemporary music boring.

If you work with software, you'd better start thinking "services" rather than "shrinkwrap". If you just can't adjust to that idea, it's probably advisable to retrain as a plumber, or something similar. You'll earn decent money and you'll be doing something genuinely useful with a long-term future.

Paris, because she understands what happens when you parade your warez on the Internet.

[John]

Where'd he get it from?

Title says who they should be going after. Unless he nabbed the studio recordings himself (he may have, i don't know if he works at the studio or not), then he got them from someone on the inside. Stop the infringement at the source, not the end.

Cheers,

John

[paul clarke]

Chris Moyles to be Jailed - Yeh!!!

So if you play a track that can be "recorded and transmitted" as the chap did on his website, you are breaking the law?

So all pre-release songs played by the BBC on all radio stations are now illegal.

Download a copy of Audacity (FREE!!), go to the iplayer website, record, edit, save and go to jail!!

So who is breaking the law here?

The BBC for playing it according to this lawsuit. Does the music industry actually look at what the hell it is doing? does it really want to simply close the doors because artists will simply release the music to their fans on their own websites?

What a crock of sh!te this is.

[Arnie]

@ mark wills

I didnt just spend £55 notes to see metallica to deprive them of a few quid. Or the 40 notes for the fucking t-shirt. Oh yeah not to mention the $15 on the live .FLAC recording the next day. Sorry sunshine the album is there purely to promote the live shows. Jesus even metallica realise that. Get a life, go to a gig

Paris cause she even knows the sweetest part of the pie is the t-shirt

[Anonymous Coward]

Bwaahaha

They claim they lost WHAT because of the leak? Awesome. In my book, the guy deserves a medal, because he saved me 20 bucks. The album is mediocre at best. A lot of people will buy it regardless. Like "fans", you know? Forgiving creatures they are.

@ Dam:

And right you are. I tend to see myself as an "honest customer". I appreciate what artists do. I hardly ever pirate music, I use iTunes or whatever to sample and then order a CD if I like what I hear. Unlike bored teens and chronic data collectors, I hardly find the time to even properly listen to all I buy, why would I steal more. Video is a different beast. It is evermore the case that you cannot buy what you want to see. Some things never make it to national TV, just don't come to DVD or take ages for that or go out of print quickly, and if you are not in the US of A, they sometimes won't even let you look at streams anymore (Fuck you, Hulu). A couple of days ago, Amazon even denied to deliver 18s DVDs outside of the UK for whatever reason. Now what do you do? Hmmmmmmmmmm.....

Point is: if they can't be arsed to sell stuff to you in a proper way or would rather toy around with all their DRM and region whatnot — what do they expect? Each and every impossible or needlessly difficult purchase is giving good customers the finger. How long is the length I am supposed to go to to actually stay on the legal side of things?

[Paolo Marini]

Why is sneezing a crime ?

"That is because once [germs are] released [in the air] it is virtually impossible to prevent unlimited dissemination of the work."

I guess we should arrest all those with a cold for lowering the overall world productivity (and I won't go as far as saying "causing the current economic crackdown")...

[Chris]

@ Mark WIlls

Finally - thank you! I was beginning to wonder if I'm the only sane one around here...

"So all pre-release songs played by the BBC on all radio stations are now illegal."

Do you think that the BBC;

a) Trawl through the piratebay.org

b) Are sent legal promos by record companies?

[Mike Gravgaard]

Business model

I don't understand why the music business hasn't realized the benefits of the internet.

My point is that people for years have ripped off music and TV for decades - this isn't a new problem, the issue for them now is that it is easier than ever and they realize this.

Lobbying groups like the RIAA, MPAA, etc all claim this is different but the truth is the the consumer has got wise and has changed what they are willing to pay for (consumers can now listen to music before they buy it and guess what some people don't/won't buy it).

An example, you can purchase a £200 Humax PVR or buy a Sky+ box and record/schedule recordings and watch these recordings back in years to come. You don't hear Sky or terrestrial TV companies suing Humax or Sky for assisting copyright infringement.

I would like a service where downloading is free with adverts (i.e I can download a film or single whilst watching some adverts). I don't want limited license or DRM based downloads or watch (on line) only type usage.

I remember watching three videos on You Tube called "Piratebay to Hollywood" and some of the PirateBay's ideas seem very thought through, it's just a pitty the record industry/movie industry doesn't seem to have a clue and take some of these ideas up.

Mike

[Anonymous Coward]

@Luis Ogando

"BTW - Did I read somewhere that Slash isn't even on this album..? Jeeze..."

Send me a copy of the album and I'd be only too happy to have a slash on it for you...

[Tom]

How are the other sites his fault.

Even if they did get the files from him they chose to offer them for download. If he got the files from some warz kiddy can they prove the other sites downloaded them from his site and didn't get them from the same warz kiddy? It seems that 1000 other people broke the same laws but they only found him so they are putting the whole load on him.

[Andraž Levstik]

@Dam

@Dam

> Watch movie on TV, record it to harddrive with your triple play internet offer. Legal.

> Watch movie on TV, forget to record it like a muppet, download it overnight. Illegal.

> Difference: a lot, apparently.

Yeah sad but true. I wish it was the same actually both ways legal...

Infact I think the person to start the following:

Open up a new licensing agency that deals with ISPs...

Pay for a license to consume content... let's say 10eur/month(that's 120 eur/year) meaning you pay that much for content... Not for any service. And are then allowed to get the content in any way you like(even through P2P and other more shady ways). This is of course to the content in a non-physical form. And I'm talking any content... not only something specific... Or maybe have 10/10/10 split... i.e. 10 audio content/10 video content/10 textual content(as in ebooks)

Will more or less dominate the market. Getting 120eur/year from a person that generally maybe buys one audio cd per year but would download a bit more AND maybe buy an extra CD... Would be quite a money making machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Scumbags

This guy should be paid, not put in prison. I didn't even know GNR had made a new album and they are probably one of my all time favourite bands. I'm sure loads of the people who downloaded this have since bought it after listening to it. He's a hell of a lot better at marketing than the poxy parasites who are supposed to be doing the job.

[Steve]

I'd love to meet one of those RIAA guys

and give him the stink palm, it would prolly be the only people worth the after scrub.

Saaay! Would you like a chocolate covered pretzel? They are a little melty but daaaamn are they good! :D

[Toastan Buttar]

U2's new album

U2's new album "No Line On The Horizon" was officially 'made available' on Spotify days before its scheduled release. Copies were downloaded from the Universal Music Australia website a couple of weeks beforehand and of course spread like wildfire through file-sharing sites. Yet somehow it still managed to sell hundreds of thousands of copies in its first week, going to #1 pretty much everywhere in the world.

Arguments that leaked music leads to reduced sales are completely invalid. Leaked crap music on the other hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

GN(a)Rse

Downloading a song when it's free is one thing. Downloading a song when it costs money is an entirely different scenario.

How do the Ass. Of America propose to calculate damages based on who _MAY_ have actually downloaded this pap if they had to pay for it?

I put it to you RIAA that NO ONE. I repeat: NO ONE would have actually downloaded this pap if they had hat to part with any cash money.