Googled it for shits and giggles, but didn't get any relevant hits.

First if all, to The Mole - Unfortunately with the time difference between us, the conversation we started to have has already fallen back a few pages.  Anyway, that discussion is sort of beyond the scope of this thread.  It would be interesting to discuss though, so maybe we can start a new thread about it.

Secondly, thank you Bright Eyes for your contributions to this discussion.  It's refreshing to see assertions backed up with evidence and not just the typical "I heard this from so-and-so who's grandmother is an insider" bullshit.  The level of rational discussion here makes me proud to be involved with this site.

Now, while I agree with your assertion that the FBI is required by law to pursue the prosectution of a crime, the point you seem to be missing is that many of us assume the band would have to be involved on some level, at least to verify their copyright to the material.  Someone could leak a CD of my band's songs, but the RIAA or FBI is not going to prosecute that person without checking that actually have rights to them.  Obviously, the scale here is different, but you get the point.

However, I don't know the intricacies of music publishing, so I can't say for sure.  I guess it's possible that these songs have already been filed with ASCAP (or whomever) and the FBI simply had to verify with them that GNR owned the rights to these songs.  Then again, in this day of intentional leaks and viral marketing, I can't imagine that the FBI would pursue this without some verification that it was not intentional. 

Basically, I'm on the fence as to how involved the band may have been.

But the thing that strikes me as pointless about the debate between you and James, is that I don't think it really matters.  Maybe the FBI and RIAA acted completely on their own.  Maybe Axl personally phoned up the Governator and got him to pull some strings to get the ball rolling.  But the reality is, Joe Public is not going to look into or even consider the intricacies of copyright law.  To the average guy, it's gonna be "Axl's a dick and fucking over his fans."  That doesn't sound like a good thing.

Skip the cut scenes?  Won't that make it like a 5-minute game?

Has this been posted yet?  From the official site:

I was really hoping for a statement from Axl about this, not "band representatives blah blah blah"...