5 yera for uploading that crap... the new single is terrible.

the poor guy should be sectioned

Is it just me or does it seem that the American justice system is based on bargaining the charge/sentence down to level that is low enough that the accused will just "cop a plea"? Or am I being naive in thinking the same is not true of the British justice system?

Nice use of the word Ass. Very appropriate :-)

Why wouldn't the prosecution do everything in their power to encourage the suspect to "cop a plea"? Are you implying that the prosecutor (and police) do <gasp> actual work? Maybe even be able to <gasp again> prove the suspect's guilt? You've been watching CSI too much. In real life, those outmoded concepts were outlawed years ago.

To put this into perspective... Uploading these music tracks onto his web page is considered a felony, and carries a possible 5-year prison sentence. Meanwhile, someone I know of has been arrested three times for DUI (the last two times, he also caused multiple accidents in each of his joyrides, as well as damage to other property). The last time, he didn't even have his license, allegedly assaulted an officer, and resisted arrest (when tested at the hospital, his blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit). What was his punishment? For his second DUI, he was sentenced to 12 months, got into multiple fights while in jail, and was released after 6 months for "good behavior". For this third DUI (the mandatory "three-strikes" rule), which was only 2 or 3 months after he was released from jail for his second DUI, he got a whole whopping one year in jail. Go ahead and tell me our "justice system" isn't fucked up.

... with every unit sold.

Come on! That's funny. My Grandad's a GNR fan and he agrees.

"The world has been waiting for the album for 15 years."

Hardly. G&R was never more than an opening act. If that. Does anyone really care?

"To put that in perspective, just try and remember if you even had a modem back then, never mind wasting your time downloading music from the web."

1993? Sure. USR HST at around 24K/sec on a good day ... typically 19.2, though. The local cable plant in Palo Alto didn't get upgraded until around 1998 ... No, I didn't download music back then. I had access to the libraries of two college radio stations (KZSU and KFJC), and as the great Dennis Ritchie put it "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of mag tape".