Blogger Faces Felony Charge for Leaking Guns N’ Roses Songs
A California blogger has been arrested by the FBI and charged with a felony for posting nine Guns N’ Roses songs on an unreleased album.
Kevin Cogill of Culver City kept the songs on his music blog for only a few hours until the band’s lawyers complained, the Los Angeles Times reports. He made them available for streaming but not for download. He was charged under a 3-year-old federal anti-piracy law and faces up to three years in prison.
Cogill is charged under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, a law that has mostly been used to prosecute commercial piracy rings, the story says. He was released on $10,000 bond.
“I hope he rots in jail,” Slash, the former Guns N’ Roses lead guitarist, told the newspaper. “It’s going to affect the sales of the record, and it’s not fair.” Work first began on the album more than a decade ago.
A statement from the band says it is interested in learning the source who leaked the music to Cogill.
Staff lawyer Corynne McSherry of the Electronic Frontier Foundation questioned the prosecution. “Bringing that hammer down on an individual music fan strikes me as entirely inappropriate,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “Taxpayers should be concerned that they are picking up Hollywood and the music industry’s legal costs, particularly when you are going after an individual like this.”
