Bloody hell, Axl Rose is pissed off. Two months ago, some idiot music blogger was stupid enough to leak the entirety of Chinese Democracy. We’re talking about mastered, album-quality versions of the songs, not just some demo that Rick Springfield belted out using pillows for drums. Needless to say, Guns ‘N Roses (which is basically Axl at this point) was justifiably unhinged, but, at the time, the dude showed little, if any, remorse for his actions:

“I always said that the more that Axl and Geffen jerked around trying to figure out how to release this finally finished album that we’ve all been waiting over 13 years for,” wrote Skwerl, “the greater the chances would be that it would slip out of a pressing plant or office somewhere and wind up in the hands of some asshole with a blog. So… Hey, I told you so.”

The tracks were apparently posted on the blog in a streaming player. Someone from the Guns ‘N Roses camp contacted Antiquiet to have the tracks removed, of course, and they were gone within a matter of hours. However, a nine-song zip file containing the songs is already available via torrent tracker sites

A few days ago, the blogger posted a bleg for legal representation. Today, the feds made an example of him:

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.

It’s rather easy to shake one’s head in disbelief at the feds for expending resources to crack down on this guy while violent homicides, massive drug deals, and the like go virtually unnoticed in many major cities. In that regard, the blogger’s arrest and probable indictment seems rather silly, but when you consider the millions of (taxable) dollars at stake with ripping off musicians, that blogger seriously fucked up.

UPDATE: After thinking about this a bit more, it amazes me that Mr. Cogill posted the album for download with the following message: “We’ve Got Chinese Democracy and It’s Worth the Wait.” WTF? Apparently, it wasn’t quite worth waiting a few more months and paling $9.99 to download it from iTunes. And thousands agreed with him and stole the album as well.

When did people go from being “hardcore” film/book/music fans to thinking it was okay to screw the artists?