Disproportionate

August 28, 2008 Blogs & Blogging, General News 7

A blogger who published Guns ‘n’ Roses songs has been arrested:

The man responsible for posting tracks from the forthcoming Guns N’ Roses album on his blog has been arrested on suspicion of violating federal copyright laws.

It seems that when challenged, he made no attempt to hide from the fact. Indeed, he has been quite open about it.

Cogill received a call from Guns N’ Roses’ legal team. “It was a really cool guy from the GN’R camp that was a middle man between someone who was very angry and me,” Cogill told Rolling Stone in June. “He was trying to reach out and see if I’d go without a fight, which is more or less what I did.” Cogill took the songs down, but he has never publicly disclosed the source of his scoop.

Cogill did not seem particularly worried at the time. “If legal proceedings come my way, I’ll face them 100%,” he said. “I’m not afraid of that. I did what I did, and I’ll face the music if I have to.”

You would think that in a reasonable world, that would be the end of the matter. He violated the copyright and took the material down when asked. He behaved reasonably in response to the request.

However:

Unfortunately, Cogill is now facing a great deal of music. The blogger faces penalties of up to three years in prison and fines of $250,000 (£125,000), according to Digital Media Wire. He could also be hit with civil suits by the copyright holders.

That is a massive over-reaction. Firstly, it is highly unlikely that Guns ‘n’ Roses have been damaged by this – quite the opposite is likely. There is also the little matter of him being unlikely to be able to pay. This, frankly is pure naked unadulterated vindictiveness out of all proportion to the original offence.

During the nineties, I quite liked G’n’R. I don’t any more. They are greedy vicious bastards and I will never buy any of their stuff again – even if I do like it.

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7 Comments

  1. You and me both mate. Metallica did the same bloody thing and lost me as a fan/customer for life. Fuck them.

  2. It’s a pity that more ordinary music purchasers don’t respond accordingly. Okay, this chap broke copyright law and I don’t support his behaviour – but the response is disgraceful.

  5. Agred with the piece, although not so much with the use of ‘copyright theft’. Theft involves permanent intent to deprive; copyright infringement doesn’t involve depriving anyone of anything at all, ever (rather, it’s a breach of a law which – despite having no moral force – is necessary to stimulate innovation).

    [I do very much like the cat icon, however. And the ‘comment edit’ function]

    john b’s last blog post..Mental anti-pie

  6. To play devil’s advocate for a moment, their argument would probably be along the lines of lost earnings caused by the “theft”. Frankly, that’s specious. I suspect that in this case, the publicity caused by the blog was a benefit rather than a loss.

    An appropriate response would have stopped at the take down request as the violator complied amicably.

  7. To play devil’s advocate for a moment, their argument would probably be along the lines of lost earnings caused by the “theft”.

    Hmm. If I’m a concert pianist and you break all my fingers, then even though I’ve lost potential earnings as a result of your criminal action, I’m sceptical that it could sensibly be classed as ‘theft’.

    I know it’s a pedantic point, but calling it ‘theft’ provides ammunition to the people who think prosecution and jail are sensible responses to IP infringement. After all, you wouldn’t deal with someone who nicked CDs from HMV and sold them on the market by sending them a lawyer’s letter politely asking them to stop it, would you?

    john bs last blog post..Sir Ben of Goldacre

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