While, I admit, you gotta be pretty dumb to share copyrighted mateterial of an unreleased album on your blogsite…this sounds like a massive waste of tax payer money to send the FBI to arrest an idiot.

LOS ANGELES — Federal authorities say they have arrested a blogger suspected of streaming songs from Guns N’ Roses unreleased album, “Chinese Democracy,” on his Web site.

FBI agents arrested 27-year-old Kevin Cogill on Wednesday morning on suspicion of violating federal copyright laws. Federal authorities say Cogill posted nine unreleased Guns N’ Roses songs on his Web site in June.

The songs were later removed.

According to an arrest affidavit, Cogill admitted to agents that he posted the songs on his Web site.
“Chinese Democracy” is a much anticipated — and repeatedly delayed — new album by Guns N’ Roses that is more than 10 years in the making.

Just when you thought consumers might be getting the upperhand (although we do when it comes to PR), the RIAA wins a case against someone who formatted his hard drive.  Seriously, I’ve reformatted my hard drive many times, can you really link a format of your to covering your tracks? Lets talk about the number of people who reformat their drives because of Viruses or because of Windows issues.

One of the most closely-watched copyright infringement lawsuits brought by the RIAA appears to be coming to a screeching halt, much to the music industry’s delight. A judge ruled Monday that a defendant had willfully and intentionally destroyed evidence of his P2P activities after being notified of pending legal action by the RIAA. Furthermore, since it was done in bad faith, it “therefore warrants appropriate sanctions.”

After that ruling, it appeared as though Atlantic v. Howell was headed for a bench trial this fall, but at the end of July, the record labels filed a motion seeking judgment in their favor due to what they characterized as Howell’s attempts to cover his tracks. According to the RIAA’s brief, Howell destroyed evidence on four separate occasions after first receiving the prelitigation settlement letter and later being served with the lawsuit. The RIAA’s forensics experts found that Howell uninstalled KaZaA and deleted everything in the shared folder, reformatted his hard drive, downloaded and used a file-wiping program, and then nuked all the KaZaA logs on his PC. “Defendant’s intentional spoliation of computer evidence significantly prejudices Plaintiffs because it puts the most relevant evidence of their claim permanently beyond their reach,” argued the RIAA. “The deliberate destruction… by itself, compels the conclusion that such evidence supported Plaintiffs’ case.”

Ok so lets forget about legal proceedings, lets talk about privacy.  Say you just wanted to erase your data on your drive before you sold it to someone because you had company informtion on it, or your financials.  Don’t format and use some program like that.  Format it and then write 00000’s to the drive.  Not only that, if you’re selling the computer and you have sensitive information do what all government institutions do: Destroy the drive.  Cause really, do you want this to happen?

Via Slashdot.

“Well, Phase I of the RIAA’s misguided pursuit of an innocent, disabled Oregon woman, Atlantic v. Andersen, has finally drawn to a close, as the RIAA was forced to pay Ms. Andersen $107,951, representing the amount of her attorneys fee judgment plus interest. But as some have pointed out, reimbursement for legal fees doesn’t compensate Ms. Andersen for the other damages she’s sustained. And that’s where Phase II comes in, Andersen v. Atlantic. There the shoe is on the other foot, and Tanya is one doing the hunting, as she pursues the record companies and their running dogs for malicious prosecution. Should be interesting.”

Hell yeah it’s going to be interesting.  I hope that others jump in, and sue the bejesus out of the RIAA and their insane, futile quest to put down the consumer beause they are trying to protect their interests.  Your days are numbered.