GUNS N' ROSES Uploader To Plead Guilty

David Kravets of Wired.com reports that the Los Angeles man arrested on accusations that he uploaded nine pre-released GUNS N' ROSES songs from the upcoming "Chinese Democracy" album has agreed to plead guilty to one federal count of copyright infringement as part of a deal, authorities said Monday.

"Yes. There is a plea deal," (PDF file) Los Angeles federal prosecutor Craig Missakian told Wired.com.

Kevin Cogill, who the FBI said confessed to uploading the nine songs last summer to his music site, Antiquiet, is scheduled to enter a plea December 8. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Cogill, a 27-year-old blogger known as "Skewrl", was arrested on August 27. He was charged under a three-year-old federal anti-piracy law that makes it a felony to distribute a copyrighted work on computer networks before its release.

Ex-GUNS N' ROSES and current VELVET REVOLVER lead guitarist Slash slammed Cogill in a recent interview, telling the Los Angeles Times, "I hope he rots in jail. It's going to affect the sales of the record, and it's not fair. The Internet is what it is, and you have to deal with it accordingly, but I think if someone goes and steals something, it's theft."

Assistant U.S. attorney Craig Missakian, who pursued the case with the FBI and recording industry, said, "In the past, these may have been viewed as victimless crimes. But in reality, there's significant damage."

Cogill posted the songs at the Antiquiet web site, where they were available for public access. The site crashed from the amount of traffic it received once word of the leaked tracks got out. Cogill took them down again after he was contacted by representatives of GUNS N' ROSES.

The tracks were allegedly taken from the band's yet-to-be-released "Chinese Democracy" album. Cogill, who used to work in distribution for the group's record label, says he received them from an anonymous source.

GUNS N' ROSES issued a statement saying, "Though we don't support this guy's actions at that level, our interest is in the original source. We can't comment publicly at this time as the investigation is ongoing."

Kevin Cogill spoke to Sky News's Martin Stanford in June 2008 for a three-and-a-half-minute report which can be viewed below.