Feds cuff blogger for Guns N' Roses leak

Chinese Democracy, American Extremism

By Cade Metz in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 27th August 2008 20:48 GMT

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The FBI has arrested a 27-year-old American blogger for leaking some unreleased Guns N' Roses tunes to the internet.

According to The Associated Press and Los Angeles Times, the Feds cuffed Culver City, California's Kevin Cogill on Wednesday morning, two months after his web site Antiquiet served up nine tunes from "Chinese Democracy" - an album Axl Rose and various other people have been dawdling over for more than a decade.

In an arrest affidavit, Cogill admitted to streaming the tunes, and the Feds have accused him of violating US copyright law.

Yes, the tunes have since been removed from Cogill's site. But plenty of people have already done their listening/copying. The affidavit also says that Antiquiet received so much traffic when the songs were posted, it eventually crashed.

Clearly, an online "Chinese Democracy" leak poses a serious threat to Guns N' Roses and its label, Geffen Records. If web surfers actually hear the unreleased album, the mix n' match band can no longer maintain the illusion that it isn't complete shite. ®

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