AfterDawn: News

Jailtime sought for Guns N' Roses uploader

On August 26th, 27-year-old Kevin Cogill was arrested on suspicion of violating federal copyright laws. FBI agents say Coghill had nine unreleased Guns N' Roses songs on his site in June.

The blogger allegedly had been streaming songs from the still unreleased new Guns N' Roses album "Chinese Democracy" on his site for some time.



In November, Coghill pleaded guilty to one federal count of copyright infringement, a charge that carries up to one year in prison and a large fine. Federal prosecutors today have said they are pushing for a six month sentence for Coghill based on the "calculation of damages based on the illegal activity of as many as 1,310 websites that disseminated the music after Cogill released it."

The government has said the damages amount to $371,622 USD, basing each infringement on iTune's 99 cents per track cost. The RIAA, always one to create phantom numbers, believes the infringement amounts to a "$2.2 million loss based on a $6.39 legitimate wholesale value." These numbers of course imply that every person who downloaded the tracks would have purchased them legally had they not been available illegally, which we all know is not true at all. The government's almost 400,000 "conservative figure" was based on the following:

"This number is based on a sample of 30 out of 1,310 unauthorized web sites that offered the leaked songs to the public between June 19, 2008 and November 21, 2008. Of the 1,310 web sites identified as having unauthorized copies of the music that defendant streamed, 30 of those contained information showing the number of downloads from their sites. It is most likely that this number represents the number of downloads of the group of 9 leaked songs, for a total of 152,784 downloads of individual songs (16,976 x 9), tt is, however, not possible to say at this time whether the figure represents the group of 9 songs or individual songs. Giving the defendant the benefit of the doubt, the government will assume that the 16,976 figure represents downloads of individual songs."

The RIAA, always looking for a hand out, did say they would accept $30,000 USD instead of the $2.2 million they are seeking if Coghill "was willing to participate in a public service announcement designed to educate the public that music piracy is illegal."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 14 Mar 2009 17:53

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• 11 comments

• windsong

  Quote:The RIAA, always looking for a hand out, did say they would accept $30,000 USD instead of the $2.2 million they are seeking if Coghill "was willing to participate in a public service announcement designed to educate the public that music piracy is illegal."Sorry, we do not negotiate with terrorists.

  14.3.2009 17:57 #1

• ROMaster2

  Quote:Quote:The RIAA, always looking for a hand out, did say they would accept $30,000 USD instead of the $2.2 million they are seeking if Coghill "was willing to participate in a public service announcement designed to educate the public that music piracy is illegal."Sorry, we do not negotiate with terrorists.Oh I lol'd

  14.3.2009 18:44 #2

• tyknappy

  Wow, they should look at it as free advertising. Now only if we knew how many of those people who had downloaded the songs purchased the cd or downloaded it off a legit sit after the fact.

  14.3.2009 22:31 #3

• Blackjax

  Yep that's a great idea. Let's put away the guy who showed us all how crappy the album was by posting it up on a website.
  
  Yep we sure do have the priorities straight in this country!!!!!!!
  
  Put away the pirates in the mean time release the "rehabilitated" criminals.
  
  Yep just like the guy not far from where I live who murdered a 13 yo girl for his sick pleasure.
  
  Yep we need to make sure the real threats to society are behind bars like these pirates. I feel safer already I guess I can let my daughter out on the street without worry now.
  
  
  edited for spelling and a failing keyboard.

  15.3.2009 01:32 #4

• logan1957

  That's all the RIAA is are pirates and terrorists and they know it. They know that file sharing is not illegal yet they try to force people to say that it is. "EDUCATE?!", if they wanted to educate public then they should be educating them on the fact that the RIAA is nothing more than a bunch of extortionists and liars and thieves. I'm waiting for the counter suits to start and watch them run and hide behind their cronies in the DOJ, thanks to Joe"I've got the RIAA's fingers so far up my A** that it feels good"Biden, who's been against fair use since he was in the Senate.
  
  This bunch of creeps seems to think it's fine and fair to diss a judge who, up until this point, had been on their side, but has since woken up to the fact that they wouldn't know the truth if it came up and punched them in the face with a steel, spike embedded glove. I think it's safe to say that their extortionist tactics will be ceasing shortly when they get sued out of existence for lack of evidence. Look at how badly they've been trying to prevent Tanya Anderson from getting a real expert on internet security and network policy, because they know that he is going to show just how crooked they are and how wrong their assumptions and so called proof is.
  
  They can't prove a thing and they know it, it's just a huge PR campaign wherein they're trying to recoup the money they would have made if they had made a deal with the original Napster to download music for .05 a song. They would have been rolling in money, but then again, what's to say that they STILL wouldn't have shut them down and taken over.

  15.3.2009 09:14 #5

• sssharp

  They are getting free advertising yes. But the problem is there inability to understand that the advertising will help them sell some of the music. The majority of the "thieves" dont plan on purchasing the music to begin with. I have gotten free legal downloads and they still rest in the folder. GNR should love this, we forgot about them a long time ago. And by the way with the bad economy he can help by paying with a BoA credit card to help them out(obviously never repay).

  15.3.2009 10:34 #6

• RusSnajp

  RIAA is just another money maker for NWO
  
  but other associations elsewhere in world that share same name aren't corrupted yet...

  15.3.2009 11:01 #7

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by sssharp: They are getting free advertising yes. But the problem is there inability to understand that the advertising will help them sell some of the music. The majority of the "thieves" dont plan on purchasing the music to begin with. I have gotten free legal downloads and they still rest in the folder. GNR should love this, we forgot about them a long time ago. And by the way with the bad economy he can help by paying with a BoA credit card to help them out(obviously never repay).The problem is the distribution model currently in use makes all consumers criminal because of the absolutive nature of copy right.
  
  On one hand you are not going to change the public into not buying goods and services because consumerism is ingrained in our society, on the other hand you can not stop the free distribution of information/media because it gives to much power to corporate to control information society has access to.
  
  
  So you split the difference and go after all instances of illicit profit allowing for the free non profit distribution of information(media) this focus the combined industries on things they can do (better qaulity,lower prices,higher volume through ignoring region schemes and selling world wide,dropping of most DRM tactics,ect,ect ) while shedding the antiquated and top heavy nature of the current copy right model.
  
  PS:infringement is not a criminal offense.

  15.3.2009 18:31 #8

• vidsteve

  I wonder how much of that 30k is going back to Axl ? I mean if they are so concerned with artists losing revenue, that $30,000 would make total U.S. sales for his album $30,014

  20.3.2009 11:08 #9

• jene

  As bad as that group is they should PAY him to distribute the songs.

  20.3.2009 17:41 #10

• cowface

  i find it quite supprizing that in todays world we still alow big groups to run our internet for any reason now this might be pushing it but why cant we find a group of people maybe even the pirates donate 1 doller each how many is that + cost of getting the doller and bankrupt these people

  20.3.2009 18:43 #11