I'm also slightly curious who gave him the tracks. It sounds like he got them anonymously over the internet. It would have been somebody with deep connections to GnR. And I'm sure that the person did not just give tracks to Cogill.
And I'm really interested in whether his streams were actually the source of the files. Most private torrent sites are really particular about quality. I don't think a song normally streamed would normally meet those qualities.
Also, I'm sure the song was not streamed in a lossy format. So song data would have been lost. And while you can convert a lossy format to another format, it won't be as high quality as if it had been converted from a lossless format. And there are signs that an album has been transcoded. And most private sites also have problems with transcodes.
So if other, non-transcoded file versions were released on the internet, and the stream was a lossy format, I'd really have a hard time believing he was the only link.
"A quick search of popular bittorrent trackers reveals that a torrent of many of the tracks in question was available in March of 2007, a full 13 months before Cogill's supposed initial leak."
And I'm really interested in whether his streams were actually the source of the files. Most private torrent sites are really particular about quality. I don't think a song normally streamed would normally meet those qualities.
Also, I'm sure the song was not streamed in a lossy format. So song data would have been lost. And while you can convert a lossy format to another format, it won't be as high quality as if it had been converted from a lossless format. And there are signs that an album has been transcoded. And most private sites also have problems with transcodes.
So if other, non-transcoded file versions were released on the internet, and the stream was a lossy format, I'd really have a hard time believing he was the only link.