by SHANE SINNOTT

In one of the more harsh legal cases in recent memory, the dude who leaked tracks from the much hyped Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy on his blog got sentenced to two months of home confinement and a year of probation! Last June, Kevin Cogill posted leaked tracks on his about-to-get-a-big-increase-in-hits blog Antiquiet (antiquiet.com). “I intended to promote the artist because I am a fan,” said Cogill. Apparently unbeknownst to him, Axl Rose is a huge asshole, who was perhaps worried that an early glimpse of the album’s shoddy overwroughtness would detract from the first week’s sales, and charges were pressed. Extra douche points for Rose for initiating the charges after Cogill had been contacted by his lawyers and complied with their request to take the tracks down. Most interesting to me, however, is that whoever gave Cogill the tracks in the first place remains a mystery—though apparently he is still helping investigators identify the source of the leak.

Songs from the forthcoming album Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy, a tribute album for the visionary leader of Polaris and Miracle Leigion, are beginning to float around. Mulcahy’s wife passed away suddenly last year, and he’s left with twin daughters to support, so the fundraising record was put together with the help of a roster that only an influential but relatively unknown ’80s artist can inspire: Michael Stipe, Thom Yorke, Dinosaur Jr., Frank Black,

Mercury Rev, the National and others. Here’s the National doing “Ashamed of the Story I Told,” a Polaris cover: tinyurl.com/mqzne2, and the dreaded Thom Yorke with “All for the Best”: tinyurl.com/nnodmw.

Those of you who follow the ongoing saga of copyright law in this “piracy capital” of a country we live in will be interested to know the government will be launching a two-month public consultation on copyright reform, starting this week. Sez industry minister Tony Clement, “We’ll be coming to a city, town, village, pasture near you and talking about those issues...” I know it sounds boring as hell, but you might want to get your voice heard if you don’t want to be fined $10K the next time you download a GNR song.