Feds Demand Prison For Guns N' Roses Uploader

Defeat Globalism writes with this excerpt from Wired: "Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are pursuing a 6-month prison term for a Los Angeles man who pleaded guilty in December to one misdemeanor count of uploading pre-release Guns N' Roses tracks, according to court documents. Kevin Cogill was arrested last summer at gunpoint and charged with uploading nine tracks of the Chinese Democracy album to his music site — antiquiet.com. The album, which cost millions and took 17 years to complete, was released November 23 and reached No. 3 in the charts. The sentence being sought — including the calculation of damages based on the illegal activity of as many as 1,310 websites that disseminated the music after Cogill released it — underscores how serious the government is about punishing those for uploading pre-release material."

Comments

Shouldn't this be a Civil matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused: all the merits of the case are civil in nature. How in hell do they justify prosecuting this man in criminal court? I don't understand: can someone please explain (and prove I'm just dumb)?

(My logic is that he made no money off his actions, and they were of absolutly no benefit to him.)

Re:Shouldn't this be a Civil matter?

[davidbrucehughes]

Exactly. And that is why we have moved out of the US to a more civilized country. We release all of our material--audio, video and written--under a Creative Commons license, and urge both artists and consumers to boycott the mainstream content providers. They are simply trying to maintain a business model that has been obsolete since Napster. Just let them die.

Re:Shouldn't this be a Civil matter?

[Firehed]

What do you mean by "deal with those who have taken your creations without compensating you for your labor"? That's the whole point of releasing under a CC license - if people choose to compensate you, great; if not, they wouldn't have bought your material anyways so suck it up.

The record industry is just a promotional vehicle anyways - you only make money on concerts after getting famous. Even bigger artists are usually lucky to break even on CD sales. Releasing under CC removes that overhead, though obviously at the expense of losing the industry's promotion skills. Word of mouth is still king.

Re:Shouldn't this be a Civil matter?

[Repossessed]

Pre release of copyrighted works, or release of limited distribution works (like a movie still only in theaters), has always been considered criminal, both in case law and the law as written. The logic is that in these cases the amount of damage is substantially more than more mundane piracy, since it creates a single point of release (he is responsible not just for the people he distributed it to, but every single person who downloads it prior to release).

I't just like that Babylon 5 guy said

[commodore64_love]

Like J.Michael Straczynski said:

First, having talked to distributors, I can tell you straight up that
if a show [or music album] has had too much online exposure and too many downloads, if it's too much out there, they won't distribute it because the market that would want to see it already has. Second, when you download a show, it's not just that you're denying the producers/distributors of that movie or TV show the "price" of the DVD... you're also having a direct impact on the creative people who made that show, and taking from them as well. Actors, writers and directors get paid a fee to make a project, and then they get residuals, which are not a bonus, they are deferred compensation.

Free downloading ultimately destroys the financial structure for artists of all kinds, and will, if left unchecked, eventually make it impossible for any artist to make a living doing what they do. Downloaders think there's no difference between data and entertainment, that everything should be free. Great, it's free to YOU. Now, how do you propose paying the people who need to put food on the plate when they are getting nothing in return?

jms [/quote] From: "jmsatb5@aol.com"
Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:36:27 -0700 (PDT)

Re:I't just like that Babylon 5 guy said

[TheRaven64]

I lost some respect for JMS when he wrote that. The thread was in connection with some scripts that he had written for Crusade episodes, which had not been produced. He was complaining about people distributing them online, even though the only studio that had the rights to produce them, wouldn't. His email basically said to me 'I have no more creative output to contribute. Don't advertise my talents as a writer and demand more shows written by me, because I can't create anything new anymore.'

Babylon 5 was created by someone with a story to tell, who was willing to work hard and struggle to tell that story. Crusade was created by someone who wanted to make money from a franchise. That the two were the same person is a tragedy.

Re:I really don't care what you call it

[squidfood]

Its still industries buying laws. Its still misuse of public funds/resources.

You know, I'm pretty strong anti-current copyright, I think the copyright lengths are way out of whack; DRM circumvention laws are wrong; fair use should allow more sharing than the industry wants, etc.

But I also think that (were everything to reach a reasonable compromise one day) that uploading an unreleased album to wide availability (where even its sale hasn't yet been permitted by the rightsholder) could reasonably be called a misdemeanor theft on the level of shoplifting, and that (minor, short-term) incarceration rates could be reasonable as a maximum penalty. Whether or not a judge should grant the maximum sentence on first offense is another matter.

Re:Gun Point?

[Darkness404]

Yah, and we all know how great debtors prison worked out. Honestly, for all non-violent offenses there should be no jail time whatsoever. It seems like we are using jail time as more or less a "time out" rather then to keep all the violent criminals off the street (the reason jails should be used), and theres a reason why our prisons are overcrowded, we seem to send people to prison for trivial offenses (like this one), or for offenses that are totally nonviolent in nature (tax evasion, etc).

Our country really needs to take a look at the purpose of government before we do anything else. We are becoming closer and closer to a dictatorship, we already have (basically) a one-party system (for all intents and purposes, democrats and republicans are the same party), government-censored media, in some cases government controlled media, our constitution is becoming nothing more then an illusion, the bill of rights seem to be disappearing faster then ever, and our government is pursuing part-ownership in several businesses (the media calls it a bailout).

Re:He should go to prison, but not for...

[AmigaHeretic]

Watch COPS sometime. People get man handled & 'beat down' while they are following all the commands the police are giving.

And don't get me wrong, I am not against "the police", I have a family and thank god for the Police men/women that brave the streets everyday..... but you have to admit when they pull up to someguy on the street and grab him and force against their cruiser before he says or does anything, well, lets just say it would be fun to see it just one time to one the corporate guys that 'actually' destroy hundreds of peoples lives.