Kevin Cogill, 27, who has no known direct affiliation with Guns N' Roses, posted nine tracks from the band's upcoming album Chinese Democracy on his Web site, said Ms Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The long-awaited upcoming album from Guns N' Roses, a hard-rocking group that came to fame in 1987 with the album Appetite for Destruction, is the band's first since its 1993 release The Spaghetti Incident. An FBI agent said in an affidavit that Cogill admitted to posting the tracks on the Internet at www.antiquiet.com.

Cogill removed the tracks from the website, but by then the songs had circulated widely, Ms Eimiller said.

Cogill, who appeared in court on Wednesday on a charge of unlawfully leaking the songs, faces a maximum of three years in prison if convicted, and five years if it's found that he did it for commercial gain. He was released on bail. -- REUTERS