In my above posts Ive said the same exact thing. So it did light a fire under his ass...When we had low quality unfinished leaks, he didnt release shit, but when we got basically finished songs we got the album. And you can tell that it was nowhere close to being released as the booklet was all fucked up, and Axl himself said they had to rush to get it out which is why there were so many typos, and it wasnt how he wanted it but again they had to rush to get it out.

I highly doubt Fernando ever got a disc of new gnr material and uploaded it to the internet, what good what that do for him?. But it has been proven by MSL that the first leaks he got from the guys in "fake spain" as he called it did in fact originate from Fernando. I cant blame Fernando, if I worked around Axl and had heard how great the new music was and my friends wanted to hear it, I would probably give at least one of them a disc, and people being who they are I know that if someone approached one of my friends and said "Hey ill give you something you really,really want for a couple of those songs" they would probably say "hell yeah".

Now as far as there only being 14 songs because Axl was too chicken,no.
I have always thought as ive said above the only reason we ever got CD was because of the leaks, and im a strong believer that if we wouldve gotten studio quality tracks of "the general,atlas shrugged, ides of march, silkworms...etc..." we wouldve had a very different looking CD, And I think we would be talking about the unheard songs such as TIL and Sorry. Maybe my theory is fucked, who knows. But thats just my strong feeling.

What im saying is... If the general,thyme,atlas,ides of march,and seven leaked, they wouldve been on the album. And yes we wouldve still had filler on the album...which the overwhelming vote is that the biggest filler track was "scraped".

But since those songs didnt leak, and now there is a mystical type of aura around these songs Axl decided to hold them back (maybe for a new album, or maybe forever,just so people will always wonder)...Well not always wonder...Maybe for a few years, then once its clear the wont be released people will give up.

Which more and more lately you see alotta people washing their hands clean of gnr.

And there it is....I do agree with you Neemo, CD is an album of leaks,with a couple throw in tracks. The heat was on Axl/Record co to get something out once those 9 tracks hit the net, So thats why the booklet has so many typos, and why Axl said he wants to redo the booklet.

Id put a 100 bucks on if "thyme, ideas of march, the general and atlas shrugged" wouldve been leaked, those tracks would have been on the album.

But then we may not of got "scraped, sorry, and TIL". So its a catch-22, im glad we got sorry and til...i could give 2 shits about scraped.

Somebody on the inside knew what to do to finally get this album out...Axl showed his weakness by getting mad when tracks would leak...same with fernando, and some capitolized on that...Thank god they did or we would still be hearing Axl on a random radio station blabbing on about "well, we were gonna release it a few months ago, but monstrosities of overwhelming circumstance and various venomious laywers, with such ignorance about time lines within the level of accusations caused it to be delayed......But expect it out by winter!".

I do think that 90% of the leaks could be traced back to Fernando, and Axl knows that. And the more recent leaks im sure can be traced back to some record company insider.

Im sure that Fernando will never drop the ball again by letting a close circle of friends have rare tracks anymore. Whenever leaks would be close to hitting, Fernando would ALWAYS re-appear flooding message boards, doing whatever he could to try to detract the leaks from happening.  But at some point if I were him, id just hope for whatever else it out there to leak so it would be done and over with. I know that he doesnt live his life checking message boards seeing if anything he leaked to his friends ends up leaking to the general public, but I know that he freaks whenever something new leaks.

But we all seem to forget that the only confirmed person to have had "checkmate aka the general" was an ex-employee's kid of the 99 cd sessions and he was ordered to return that track. So even Fernandos friends may not have that track, which reguardless of the "atlas shrugged, oklahoma...etc" 99% of people want the general, which there is a good chance isnt even in "our" hands anymore...our meaning the public (be it a small group of hoarders)...but thats closer than it being in Axls hands.