Feds arrest man accused of posting unreleased Guns N' Roses songs*

(Post updated at 2:45 p.m. with comment from the Electronic Frontier Foundation)

How he got his hands on the goods, we don't yet know. But today, police visited the home of a Culver City man and arrested him on suspicion of violating federal copyright law by posting nine previously unreleased Guns N' Roses songs on a website, Scott Glover reports in this L.A. Times story.

In June, the nine songs, from the band's upcoming album "Chinese Democracy," ended up on the website Antiquiet, which drew the attention of the feds. The site received so much traffic that it crashed.

Kevin Cogill, 27, told the FBI that he had posted the songs, according to an arrest affidavit. (In other stories, Cogill has been quoted as Kevin Skwerl, who, according to Rolling Stone, operates Antiquiet and used to work in the distribution office of Universal Music. The Recording Industry Assn. of America says it's the same person.) "Leak or no leak, I said that the only way the album would be a net success would be if the music was good enough to move units for years to come," he wrote at the time on his blog.

For musicians, TV networks or movie studios, there is probably nothing worse than seeing their work available illegally online before it has even been released. The movie industry has put elaborate ...

... and largely effective security measures in place to make sure that doesn't happen.

And in recent years, pre-release pirates have faced the threat of prison time, not just fines, thanks to a new federal copyright law. People may not have worried about risking three years in prison for posting some songs that each retail for 99 cents, but they may want to start worrying now.

Cogill, who is appearing today in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, is the first to be charged under the new federal statute in the West, said Kathy Leodler, director of investigations for the RIAA's Western region office in L.A. There have been others nationally, including two fans of singer Ryan Adams.

"The arrest of Kevin Cogill is great for the recording industry related to our online investigations. We are very pleased with the FBI's interest and the U.S. attorney's office's aggressiveness in pursuing this investigation," Leodler said. "We think we'll see more and more of these pre-release cases."

"What's interesting is how was this pitched to the U.S. attorney as a prosecution priority," said Peter Jaszi, an American University law professor. "In Los Angeles, the music industry is, in fact, a significant local industry. But why pursue this person out of all the other alleged copyright violations out there?"

Corynne McSherry, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, agreed. She said that when lawmakers passed the tougher anti-piracy legislation, they probably didn't have this kind of situation in mind.

"They had in mind the commercial pirates selling 'Harry Potter, not this guy in Culver City posting some songs on his blog to make a point," she said.

-- Michelle Quinn

Photo: Fans screaming at a Guns N' Roses show in 2006. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[mcsey]

Oh for Yoda's sake, those tracks from Chinese Democracy have been floating around the Tubes for almost a year.

Axl, step up for this guy!

[Mike]

Good! There are too many bloggers who think they are providing service/info to the public, as if they were true journalists. Now we are inundated with idiotic opinions, whether it's talk radio or blogs.

This was an illegal act and the musicwas not public domain. I hope he suffers criminally for this. Unfortunately, he probably blogs from his parents' basement, so there will be no civil award to the band.

[Not Respected Copyright Law Will End Artistic & Software Development]

Regardless of whether this guy was nabbed to be made an example of or as a Kingpin of some crime organization, the fact remains:

If there aren't harsh penalties and prosecution of copyright theft (especially before the commercial product is released!), new albums will stop being recorded and released, new software programs will stop being made, new movies won't be made... period.

The end goal of the "we don't believe in copyright law" is to end all production of products that can be downloaded - period. They may not think so, but if they had their way there'd be no products TO steal... because they wouldn't have been made in the first place.

[Programmer]

It seems that the Electronic Frontier Foundation will say anything in defense of copyright thieves. If this case isn't the epitome of what the law was written for, then what is? This guy cost potentially millions of dollars in lost revenue by stealing these copyrights. Every download, of which there were enough to bring his site down, was a separate individual crime. Let's see more of this kind of prosecution.

[IP is imaginary property]

"Not Respected Copyright Law Will End Artistic & Software Development",

You are, in a word, WRONG.

Human creativity has never depended on copyright laws, harsh or otherwise.

The US Consititution originally set copyright terms for 14 years, but the law has become so perverted and extended that it is now essentially corrupt and is ripe to be undermined and/or ignored.

People create because that is what people do when they are not preoccupied with physical survival. Artists are compensated for producing work directly from their customers, but vampiric middlemen have been made obsolete by digital music and the internet. Everyone can be a publisher.

Do you really think that Shakespeare, Solzhenytsen, or Hans Christian Anderson even considered copyright when writing? Their output sure beats the hell out of that overpaid writer of the Harry Potter fantasy, in terms of enriching humanity.

As another example, someone you know uses Firefox.

[Let's Just Arrest Them All]

Nine Inch Nails released their last album via free download, while Radiohead did their "pay whatever you want" experiment. And "Dr. Horrible" (a 43-minute musical released via Hulu) has been the #1 "TV season" on iTunes for over a month. All of them seem to be making a lot of money. So, somehow I doubt that "new albums will stop being recorded and released, new software programs will stop being made, new movies won't be made... period". It's called advertising, people. Songs have been available for free on the radio for almost a century now, but people still go to the concerts, purchase t-shirts, bumper stickers and posters, and somehow still decide to buy the album.

[Richard Roth]

That's not nice;)

[Tim]

this guy is treated worse than criminals who physically harm others. a song does not kill people, lawsuit does. i'll bet that axl will not do a single thing to help this guy, because he's exactly the same as the music industry. if you think your singers will help you when it's your time of need, you've been hugely mistaken.

[docatomic]

"If there aren't harsh penalties and prosecution of copyright theft (especially before the commercial product is released!), new albums will stop being recorded and released"

I disagree completely. Artists are driven people; they have an irresistible need to create, and they will find ways to do so no matter what.

Traditionally, musicians and other performance artists had earned their way through life by their very performances. The only way that the 'middlemen' ever attained control over the situation was by means of distribution; they offered the artists greater revenue through means of distribution, marketing, and promotion - and they were able to do so only when distribution was more limited and expensive.

Now, distribution is world-wide, instantaneous, and practically free - therefore the paradigm must shift; the 'middlemen' are simply no longer needed and have become obsolete. Artists shall continue to create as always, because they must; it is their very purpose of existence - however, their means and livelihood shall also shift accordingly. Once again, they shall earn their living not solely through their creational works alone, but instead through the traditional means of performance.

[JJL]

The Federal Government, US Attorney, and FBI should spare no expense, use all available manpower, and utilize all available resources to combat US Copyright Violations and stamp out illegal distribution of intellectual property!

These pirates must be halted and their illegal products eradicated!

And if and when that is finally achieved, we can start devoting our money and manpower to some secondary issues - like Poverty, Violent Crime, Child Abuse, Terrorism, Housing, Health Care, ....

[mac from ny]

To the writer who claims "If there aren't harsh penalties and prosecution of copyright theft ... new albums will stop being recorded and released":
Check out archive.org. Hundreds of recording artists allow their work to be downloaded. And many have a fan base that pays good money to see them live.

[GJ Tryon]

"And if and when that is finally achieved, we can start devoting our money and manpower to some secondary issues - like Poverty, Violent Crime, Child Abuse, Terrorism, Housing, Health Care, ...." and, JJL, don't forget slavery, because that's exactly the underlying issue when we steal anyone's property, "intellectual" or otherwise. Artists are not your personal slaves to be exploited at will.

[Ruth]

Let's not muddy the water with a bunch other noise about copyright laws and what others have done. The simple fact is, IT IS NOT KEVIN'S MUSIC AND HE HAS NO RIGHT TO DO ANYTHING WITH IT. PERIOD. This was theft, plain and simple.

[GooseGuy]

Out tax dollars at work!! Hasn't the FBI got anything better to do than be a nanny for the poor poor poor RIAA? Haven't they got some crimes to investigate or something? How many rape victims are waiting for law enforcement to "find" resources to pursue their cases, while instead we can muster an entire federal investigation into how some slob managed to post a few MP3s to the Internet, possibly (theoretically) depriving a multinational conglomerate a few record sales? In fact this sort of thing should DRIVE sales, if the folks involved were clever enough to parlay this incident into free publicity for the legitimate release...... I hope this arrest blows up in their faces. Runs in Hoses should step up immediately and publicly cut this dude some slack.

[ThinkClear]

The main reason the FBI will investigate, make arrests and assist in the prosecution of this case (and others like it) is because it's easy, cheap and no one shoots back at them. Now they can claim a multi-million dollar victory over crime and justify department budgets without actually having to put agents in any kind of harms way. It's all a disgusting act of smoke and mirrors to make them look good while they do us no good.

At 10 cents per sound times nine songs, the artist would have had to have lost just over 11 million "legel" sales of each posted song to bring in 10 million dollars in royalty payments. The claim that millions of dollars have been lost due the actions of this "pirate" is not just false, it's a lie.

[Francis]

I applaud this man's arrest; This individual was doing massive harm to the public good - he was actively contributing to the destruction of the current music industry and, if I may be so bold, music and happiness itself. What's more is he actually seems to take pride in the fact that he's sullying the music world, encouraging others to participate in this insult. No one who listens to Guns 'n Roses should be given any quarter when it comes to prosecution and sentencing - they made their choice to support such a heinous act and they now must be held responsible.

[JJL]

He STOLE it!?!? Oh pleeeze..... If it was STOLEN, then GNR wouldnt HAVE it anymore - but they still HAVE the music. What he did was COPY it and allow others to listen to it.

Yes, it is true - Kevin had NO RIGHT TO COPY the music. But Police, FBI, U.S. Attorney, Federal Statutes, PRISON TIME!?!? I'm sorry, but this all is a totally disproportionate scale of priorities, and a serious mis-allocation of limited resources.

You know, somebody TOOK my CAR a few years ago, and I DIDNT HAVE IT ANYMORE - THAT was STEALING - and I gotta tell you, not very much was done about THAT theft.... but then again, I'm not an overpaid, overage pop "star"

As for the "slavery" allegation.... that's just too ludicrous to address, and I think everyone here knows it, including the author

[tom]

I'm wondering if anyone really cares about hearing new runs n' hoses music anyway. It's not even the same band, just the lead whiner and hired help.

And I bet that crowd scene with all the smiling faces at the top of the article isn't from a buns 'n dozes show either.

[GuidedByMonkeys]

Good god this is a poorly written article.

[OH PLEASE!]

F.B.I. Please focus your attetion on real issues, anyone with only half a brain would realize, no matter how many aresset you make you will never stop people from "illegally" downloading music. This is a VERY poorly writing article with undeniable bais towards the machine. OWNED!

[Sgt. Jake]

A lot of people believe that music (and software) should be free. "I should be able to download all I want for nothing." Every time I ask someone to explain why they think this, one of their reasons is, "Well they make way too much money! They charge $20 for a CD! I wouldn't download their songs if they weren't so greedy!" If these thieves weren't so ignorant they'd see why that statement is stupid and this is why copyright infringement is CHEATING and is punishable by international law. It's law because it lowers humanity's quality-of-life.

If a musician is rich from their music their music has added to our quality-of-life on this planet and they should be compensated for that and paid well. This has a dual effect:

In the first place Musicians have bills and families to feed too. When their music pays, and pays good, it entices other talented people to make music too thus enriching our musical experience as humanity. We need talented people in music and (like it or not) they are attracted by money, else we loose them to become lawyers and stock brokers.

In the second place it helps to keep those talented people focused on creating more exceptional music for our consumption. If music was free then these talented people will spend most of their time doing another job to pay the bills. Thus reducing their quality/quantity of music and our quality-of-life.

To put it another way. You wouldn't have your military personnel working at Burger King 40+ hours a week then have them train on weekends for free. What kind of military would you have then? Your quality-of-life would soon degrade to slavery, as another country took over.

The quality of music (or software) written as a hobby simply don't compare with professional work. PERIOD.

[Johnny Johnson]

I think that it depends on the quality of the music being pirated. For copying the likes of Tori Amos, REM, or Ray Charles.....then jail time would be appropriate. For distributing something like John Tesh, I don't think any penalty would make sense other than public ridicule for poor taste. For GN'R, 40 hours of community service would be the right penance.

Johnny J

[D.Z. in L.A.]

The person who posted at August 27, 2008 at 10:59 PM, "Do you really think that Shakespeare [et al] even considered copyright when writing?" sure got it wrong. In Shakespeare's time, he, his contemporary equivalents, and their theater companies kept play scripts locked up and secret because that was the only way to prevent their works from being performed by other companies, either in competition or in later performances that would kill the market for a revival. There wasn't legal protection. Copyright law grew to give this protection.

The relatively recent changes in U.S. law came about because the old laws weren't cutting it. Don't believe it? One court decision pointed out that back when the mandatory royalty for recordings was about 2 3/4 cents and the penalty for record piracy was treble damages (meaning: three times the rate of a legal recording), a pirate after conviction would only have to shell out about 11 cents per song per copy. There would have to be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of copies made for there to be enough money involved to make it worth prosecuting, and with everyday citizens knowing that, they were confident that there was little chance of prosecution.

Take a read at some of the background: http://chart.copyrightdata.com/c15A.html.

There's a summary of one of the cases which took place in the transitional 1970s at: http://chart.copyrightdata.com/c13B.html#s038.

A summary of the Supreme Court ruling concerning DeCSS and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is at http://chart.copyrightdata.com/c18D.html#s064.

If you read the various court decisions (or the summaries linked above), you'll see the gradual developments which brought copyright law to its present stage.

[Kevlar]

Does anyone else think that uploading eight lousy songs is worth three years in federal prison? People get three years in county for stabbing someone- who is the victim here?

It seems to me this is all about money- but then what isnt in America these days?

http://www.learnucd.com/kevlar/death-penalty-for-music-pirates-why-we-need-it

[Gene Simmons]

Why would Axl help someone who stole from him...get real...
A thief has been caught and have to pay the penelty.
Maka an example of him and show everone who thinks its their right to upload or download copyright material that it is a crime theyre doing...