Chinese Democracy leaker changes plea to guilty

Making Guns' N' Roses' Chinese Democracy took upwards of 14 years. But bringing to justice the blogger who leaked the tracks to the Internet took mere months.

Kevin Cogill, the blogger who uploaded nine songs from Chinese Democracy to YouTube has agreed to change his plea to guilty in a deal that will greatly reduce the charges against him to a single federal count of copyright infringement, a Los Angeles prosecutor said.

One year in the cooler vs five

Under the terms of the plea bargain, Cogill, the writer for the website Antiquiet who leaked the tracks back in June, will only face a maximum of one year in prison. Which is still pretty bad, but it sure beats the five years he could have faced had he pled innocent and been convicted.

It is still not known whether Cogill, a former employee of Gun N' Roses' record company, Universal Music Group, must reveal his source for the leaks.

After he was first visted by the FBI, Cogill boasted, "If legal proceedings come my way, I'll face them 100 percent. I'm not afraid of that. I did what I did, and I'll face the music if I have to."

Yeah, but how about facing some banged-up, hardcore dudes in the joint who only have crackly Nickelback cassettes to listen to? That's a different story.