Blogger busted for leaking Chinese Democracy
August 28th, 2008 by Chad Radford in Music news
According to an Associated Press report federal authorities say they have arrested a blogger suspected of streaming songs from Guns N’ Roses’ ridiculously long over due unreleased album, Chinese Democracy, on the website www.antiquiet.com.
FBI agents arrested 27-year-old Kevin Cogill (A.K.A. Skwerl) on Wednesday morning (Aug. 27th) on suspicion of violating federal copyright laws. Federal authorities say Cogill posted nine unreleased Guns N’ Roses songs on his website in June.
Sadly, the songs have been removed from the site. But after almost 14 years of Axl Roses’ antics nothing could possibly live up to the hype surrounding this record, which still has no formal release date.
Even way back in 2003 the Offspring made a joke that they were going to call their forthcoming album Chinese Democracy (You Snooze, You Lose), but it was just an April Fools day joke. Regardless, that was 2003 and the record’s continually delayed release was already a joke back then.
Back to Skwerl, according to an arrest affidavit, he admitted to the Feds that he posted the songs on his site back in June. why the Feds decided to take him down now remains a mystery, if not a convenient means of generating publicity for good old G’nR in whatever mutated form the group currently exists.
One of Skwerl’s fellow Antiquiet bloggers, who goes y the name Johnny Firecloud posted a justifiably Orwellian response to the arrest this morning.
Skwerl was released today on a signature bond of $10,000, which is a fare cry from the prosecutions initial request for a $50,000 bond.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 17th at 4:30 p.m. and the arraignment for Sept. 22nd at 8:30 a.m. Both will be at the U.S. District Court Building at 255 E. Temple Street, Third Floor, in Downtown Los Angeles.
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