Feds Put the Screws to Ryan Adams Fans

A pair of Adams fans have been indicted by a federal grand jury for leaking tracks from Jacksonville City Nights to an Adams fan site last August, a month before the album's September release date. Now Robert Thomas of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Jared Bowser of Jacksonville, Florida each face up to 11 years in prison for violating the 2005 Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (FECA), according to the Associated Press and the Hollywood Reporter.

The pair are believed to be the first individuals prosecuted under the prerelease provision of FECA. By posting the tracks, Thomas and Bowser violated the section which states that media shall not be made "available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution." Adams' label, Lost Highway Records, is a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, which, obviously, was intending Ryan's album for commercial distribution.

How this will affect sites which frequently post leaked tracks remains to be seen, as many see fair use in distributing media already available on the file-sharing black market. Will America's prisons be stuffed with MP3 bloggers?

Investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Section of the United States Attorney's Office, the intensity of the prosecution may seem awfully severe for a pair of fans not apparently interested in personal financial gain. But RIAA chairman and CEO Mitch Bainwol sees no shades of gray in his black and white assessment of the indictments.

"Prerelease piracy is a particularly damaging and onerous form of theft," Bainwol said. "It robs artists of the chance to sell their music before it even hits the streets or becomes legally available online."

Many studies, as well as many artists, dispute the deleterious effects of leaked tracks and music downloading, but the RIAA and US Attorney's office assessment is already demonstrated by Bainwol's additional comments. "The message here is clear: Significant crimes bring significant consequences."

Doesn't that sound like something a comic book villain would say?

* Pitchfork Review: Ryan Adams: 29
* Ryan Adams: <a