

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, pictured to the right.

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. "Itwas nothing like that."

The authorities wanted to see the original files, whichSkwerl had obtained from an undisclosed source. However, he had alreadydeleted them per Axl Rose's legal staff. So he directed them to copiesof the songs that were copied all over the internet after his blogfirst posted them.

So many people downloaded the songs (including yours truly)

that Antiquiet's servers crashed from the demand. Soon after came theobligatory phone call from an unrecognized phone number with a Los Angeles areacode.

"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 ismore or less what I did."

He pulled the tracks down, deleted them from his computer and receiveda 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 oflaw. "It's may be (see update below) a legal gray area since it wasn't fordownload; it wasn't a finished product," he said. "We aren't sure who owns therecordings. 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.

Update: Skwerl contacted Listening Post via e-mail to clarify a few things.

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