FBI Visits Leaker of Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy

FBI Visits Leaker of Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy



It's one thing to share an album that has already been released, which is illegal because it constitutes copyright infringement.

However, it's an entirely different matter to leak unreleased material, as a poster who goes by the nom de blog "Skwerl" on the Antiquiet blog discovered Monday.

Two "Mulder and Scully types" tracked him down at his workplace and questioned him about where he obtained the nine unreleased Guns N' Roses tracks that he distributed through his website, Antiquiet.

The agents also visited him at his California home at 7 a.m. Tuesday, according to Rolling Stone. "I wasn't sure if they were going to come by with a warrant and trash the place, like in the movies," Skwerl told the publication. "It was nothing like that."

The authorities wanted to see the original files, which Skwerl had obtained from an undisclosed source. However, he had already deleted them per Axl Rose's legal staff. So he directed them to copies of the songs that were copied all over the internet after his blog first posted them.

So many people downloaded the songs that Antiquiet's servers crashed from the demand. Soon after came the obligatory phone call from an unrecognized phone number with a Los Angeles area code.

"It was a really cool guy from the GNR camp that was a middleman between someone who was very angry and me," Skwerl said. "He was trying to reach out and see if I'd go without a fight, which is more or less what I did."

He pulled the tracks down, deleted them from his computer and received a cease-and-desist letter that hinted at potential legal action. Finally, the FBI tracked him down, resulting in his meetings with them Monday and Tuesday morning.

Skwerl says that despite having admitted to distributing the files, he's not too worried about getting his ass handed to him in a court of law. "It's may be (see update below) a legal gray area since it wasn't for download; it wasn't a finished product," he said. "We aren't sure who owns the recordings. I feel like I might survive this."

Perhaps. Under the 2005 Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, distributing an unreleased album is punishable by fines and/or a jail term of up to 10 years.

[BlackCrypt]

It would have been better if Axl had showed up at that dudes door!

[georgemandingo]

jaja, does anybody really care about this anymore... I stopped caring when axl came out with his predator braids...

[gallow737]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkFVPoHTmvM

That is all

[staroffurby]

The leak was from Axl, trying to get some publicity. They are old rockers that don't know when to call it a day. Next in the publicity run will be the Axl sex tape, him a midget and a hermaphrodite in a huge pool full of jelly.

[IronMan2008]

The sad part about all this is that the songs suck!

[RvP]

i listened to a couple of them and thought they were pretty good, id like to hear some good quality recordings of it tho

Guns, imo are up there with the greatest of all time, they should just all get back together tho because the current line up have nothing on slash, duff and steven

[RvP]

would have been fucking sweet if Axl turned up tho, he would have beat the shit out of him, then been thrown in jail lol

[BlackCrypt]

A bit of a followup on the GnR leak...

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Full story HERE

i guess this guy hadn't heard the news. this just happened a few hours ago.

unless of course, this is the continuing chapter of this same story.

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