Blogging is a dangerous game, at least if you decide to chance your arm and push the law to its limits. When Kevin Cogill posted nine tracks from the 14-track new Guns N’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy, on his Web site last June, five months before it was due for release, he went way too far. Now, he faces not only a huge fine, but also a prison sentence. Fair punishment?

Axl Rose spent 17 years working on Chinese Democracy, the latest Guns N’ Roses album which finally saw the light of day last November. After all that time in the making, it wasn’t even that good, receiving average reviews and failing to reach number one in the charts. Nevertheless, die-hard G’n'R fans were desperate to hear the new material.

This led blogger Kevin Cogill to post nine tracks from the finished album on his site, Antiquiet.com in June after receiving them from an unnamed source. The tracks were available to stream (not download) for a few hours, in which time the site crashed under the weight of traffic. Eventually, Cogill was ordered to remove the tracks, which he did.

Cogill was then arrested in August and charged with copyright violation. He pleaded guilty, and for this, saw the charge downgraded from a felony to a misdemeanor. But he still faces a huge bill and possibly time in prison for his crimes.

Federal prosecutors are seeking a 6-month prison sentence for Cogill, and sentencing on May 4 in Los Angeles will determine whether this transpires or not. He also faces a bill of at least $371,622, which is the amount being sought by the government. As usual, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is going a step further and demanding $2.2 million in damages.

You can see how these vastly different sums were arrived at on Wired. Regardless, both are assuming that all the people that listened to what amounted to a sampler of the album would have bought it and didn’t once it was released. Which they obviously can’t know for sure.

I have a certain sympathy for Cogill. Certainly the size of the bill and the length of the prison term he is facing seem obtuse and overly harsh. But he did commit a crime and was pretty stupid to do so. For that he should obviously be punished but I’m not sure the punishment quite fits the crime in this case.

As a side note, the RIAA claimed it would be willing to accept just $30,000 in damages if Cogill “was willing to participate in a public service announcement designed to educate the public that music piracy is illegal.” Will he take the easy way out or choose to be in debt for the rest of his life. I know which way I’d go…

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Entry was posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 11:12 pm under Crime, Internet, Legal, Music, Opinion, Piracy.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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