Ronald Rosen, an entertainment industry lawyer, said record labels lost the public relations battle when they sued people who distributed music over file-sharing networks, with stories emerging of single mothers defending cases over songs they could have bought for 99 cents.
"But the public is going to have much less sympathy with pirates" who trade in pre-released material, he said.
But Corynne McSherry, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the arrest of Cogill was troubling for many reasons. It raises the prospect of eager fans going to jail for posting a handful of songs.
"Bringing that hammer down on an individual music fan strikes me as entirely inappropriate," she said. "Taxpayers should be concerned that they are picking up Hollywood and the music industry's legal costs, particularly when you are going after an individual like this."
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michelle.quinn@latimes.com
swati.pandey@latimes.com
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Times staff writer Charlie Amter contributed to this report.
