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Guns N' Roses Uploader Guilty of Copyright Infringement

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

The Los Angeles man accused of uploading nine pre-released Gun N' Roses tracks pleaded guilty Monday to one count of misdemeanor criminal copyright infringement.

Kevin Cogill faces a maximum one year of confinement when sentenced in Los Angeles federal court on March 3. But he faces no jail time in a deal(.pdf) cut with prosecutors, in which the 28-year-old agreed to cooperate with authorities.

"Mr. Cogill is cooperating with the government in our efforts to find the original source of the leak," federal prosecutor Craig Missakian said in a telephone interview.

This summer, Cogill was arrested and charged with uploading to his music site, antiquiet.com, nine tracks of the Chinese Democracyalbum. The album, which cost millions and took 17 years to complete, was released Nov. 23 and reached No. 3 in the charts.

"I got my hands on pre-release versions of Guns N' Roses songs ? something my audience was heavily anticipating," Cogill, also known as "Skwerl," toldU.S. Magistrate Paul Abrams. He had confessedto the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was tipped off to the uploading by an investigator with the Recording Industry Association of America.

See Also:

• FBI: Uploader Confesses to Pre-Releasing Guns N' Roses Tracks ...
• Lawyer: Guns N' Roses Uploader to Walk
• Reduced Charges for Guns N' Roses Uploader, Deal 'in the Offing ...
• Guns N' Roses Uploader to Plead Guilty
• Guns N' Roses Uploader Seeking Financial Help
• FBI Arrests Alleged California Music Pirate
• Nonprofit Distributes File Sharing Propaganda to 50000 U.S. ...

Full post as published by Threat Level on December 15, 2008 (boomark / email).