Skwerl owes $2 million! RIAA
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Skwerl. Now that’s a hardcore name for a hardcore Internet pirate, if ever there was one!
Known to his mum and girl-friend as Kevin Cogill, FBI agents, acting for the corporate music industry, arrested Skwerl in his jammies last year.
His alleged crime? He uploaded nine unreleased tracks from the not eagerly awaited upcoming Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy to his blog.
Oh! The Horror!
Now federal US authorites want Cogill thrown into jail with six months to repent his crimes.
According to the FBI, says The Register, the songs — widely disseminated online, lest we forget — were worth $731,622 based on a ‘reasonable estimate’ in which Skwerl was given the “benefit of the doubt” that each infringement would have been worth 99 cents on Apple’s iTunes, according to court documents, says the story.
BUT ————
———— the RIAA claimed a $2.2m loss based on a “$6.39 legitimate wholesale value” for the nine songs being downloaded around 350,000 times, it states, continuing »»»
“The defendant’s conduct here was even more egregious and harmful than the typical music piracy case, since the music he unlawfully distributed had not yet been released to the public,” wrote RIAA anti-piracy veep L Carlos Linares on 10 March.
“The unlawful distribution of pre-release sound recordings causes irreparable harm to a record label’s marketing plan – typically developed with great care and at significant cost – by utterly eliminating the label’s ability to control the public presentation of the artist’s work,” he opined.
Adds The Register:
“The lobby group … said it would accept $30,000 instead of the $2.2m claim if Cogill ‘was willing to participate in a public service announcement designed to educate the public that music piracy is illegal’.”
nine unreleased tracks – GNR uploader Kevin Cogill pleads `guilty`, November 11, 2008
The Register – Guns N’ Roses blogger faces music prison, March 16, 2009
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March 16th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
This is the type of stuff that trigger insurection!
March 16th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Uh huh… I see what they’re up to. They wouldn’t be willing to bring it down to $30,000 if they thought they had a decent case (for obvious reasons, the lawsuit’s publicity must be a better deterrant than an advertisement that everyone knows is staged). He should (and, hopefully will) refuse to help them disseminate lies, and when their case flounders, we’re doing all the better. I mean, I can’t imagine that an advertising campaign like that would be effective: he’s already shown that he doesn’t particularly agree with them, and they’re basically paying him $2.1M to do the ad (if you assume that they are able to win the case, that is).
Maybe I should stop myself from saying the obvious… ah, what the hell. “Here we go again!”
March 16th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Humiliate himself AND pay them $30,000? Don’t do it, Skwerl!
The abuse of the concept of copyright has just gone too damn far. Arresting the guy in his pajamas was one thing, but I won’t be surprised when they start forcibly stripping them and waterboarding them.
March 17th, 2009 at 3:58 am
I dont know much about licensing (pretty much nothing ) but it just seems strange that they could go after someone for music that hasn’t even been released.Maybe it’s just strange to me.shouldn’t licensing not be in effect until release?
Like I said “pretty much nothing” about licensing.