Piracy really is a crime.
That’s what this blogger from LA learned the hard way after posting new songs from Guns N’ Roses on his site five months before the CD came out last November. The songs were part of the band’s first new album after 17 years.
Kevin Cogill’s sentence, which came out yesterday (Tuesday), was two months of home confinement. He also received one year’s probation and is obliged to appear in an anti-piracy commercial.
According to a Reuters report, Cogill pleaded guilty last December to a single misdemeanor count of violating federal copyright laws. He also agreed to help the authorities identify the original source of the leak.
The nine tracks from the Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy were posted in Cogill’s Web site antiquet.com. The tracks became very widely circulated which pre-empted the much-awaited album.
The public-service announcement is expected to air during the Grammy Awards on January 31. It will be for the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group for the major U.S. music labels
Well at least he escaped the usual sentence of a $100,000 fine, a maximum of one year in federal prison, and five years’ probation. His cooperation, the fact that he posted the tracks for a short time, and not for profit, helped him in this narrow escape (whew!) 😉
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