Remember the kid who was arrested in 2008 for leaking a few unfinished tracks off Chinese Democracy? Kevin “Skwerl” Cogill pled not guilty, his charges were reduced, and a year ago he was sentenced to house arrest. One other condition of the sentence was that Cogill would have to “participate in a public service announcement designed to educate the public that music piracy is illegal.”

Well, that PSA never happened, and Wired points out that as of yesterday, he’s no longer under the court’s jurisdiction. That is to say: he got off scott free.

“I knew as soon as this went down, nobody would give a shit about me doing a PSA,” Cogill said in a recent telephone interview. […]

The proposed court-ordered PSA was vaguely defined from the beginning, he said. “We had some conversations about it, hypothetical conversations,” Cogill said. “I said everybody is going to laugh at it.” […]

Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the RIAA, which alerted the FBI to Cogill’s unlawful uploading, said in a Wednesday e-mail that the RIAA has “discretion whether or not to move forward” with a public service announcement.

“Due to various elements of this case (not to mention unnecessarily high production costs), we chose not to produce one,” the e-mail said.

So there you have it, kiddies. Filesharing will get you in big trouble. There is one more lesson in all of this:

The best advice he got was from his Los Angeles lawyer, Kaloyanides. “He told me,” Cogill said, “‘to shut my fucking mouth and don’t say shit to the feds.'” But Kaloyanides was retained too late, after Cogill spilled the beans and handed over his laptop.

Remember: you have the right to remain silent. Don’t say shit to cops unless you have a lawyer with you.

Guns N Roses: iTunes, Amazon, Insound, wiki

Wired: Guns N’ Roses Uploader Gets House Arrest, Will Make Anti-Piracy Ad.

Kevin “Skwerl” Cogill, the blogger who uploaded nine tracks from Chinese Democracy to Antiquiet prior to its release date, got a slap on the wrist, won’t have to pay a fine, and will make a radio or television message “talking about the importance of protecting copyright holders’ rights in their songs and movies.” Classic. Watch for the smirk.

According to a post on his site, “…Skwerl’s got plenty to say on the matter – he’ll break down the details soon enough.”

Kevin Cogill, the blogger who posted nine songs from some dumb album that’s coming out soon, has had the charges against him reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor. His maximum prison time, if convicted, is down to one year from five. He still faces monetary damages if Axl opts to sue him.

The felony Cogill was charged under requires the authorities to prove the distribution of pre-released, commercial material over the internet for financial gain or commercial advantage.

Under the misdemeanor statute, (pdf) the authorities must prove copyright infringement of the right of performance, distribution or reproduction accomplished for commercial gain or financial advantage. Using the internet is not required and the material does not need to be pre-release.

Cogill’s lawyer seems to think a “deal may be in the offing.” I thought the Man was going to make an example of this case, but it looks like prosecutors are either not very confident in the merits of their case, or else maybe the U.S. attorney’s office has more important things to do…like trying to track down a single prosecutable case of actual voter fraud.

Jeez, did we really only make it ten days without a Chinese Democracy-related post? Irving Azoff certainly knows how to keep his bands in the news, doesn’t he?