A couple of weeks ago, Gene Simmons made one of his ridiculously misguided attacks on file sharers (he does it every few years). Despite the fact that KISS is a perfect example of a band that makes a ton of money from scarce goods that are made more valuable the more people are aware of their music, Simmons has this misguided notion that "suing everyone" is the right strategy. Of course, as we pointed out at the time, he's obviously bluffing, because he's had the opportunity to do so for years and he has not done so.

Either way, his antics caught the attention of the folks behind "Operation Payback," from the group Anonymous (an effort that I still think is equally misguided), and they took down Simmons' website with a DDoS attack (after an apparent dispute internally over whether or not Simmons should be a target).

Either way, it appears that the attack only sharpened the rhetoric from Simmons, in his standard speak-first-understand-later manner. He posted on his site that he was working with the FBI to "sue their pants off" for "hacking" his site:


Some of you may have heard a few popcorn farts re: our sites being threatened by hackers.

Our legal team and the FBI have been on the case and we have found a few, shall we say "adventurous" young people, who feel they are above the law.

And, as stated in my MIPCOM speech, we will sue their pants off.

First, they will be punished.

Second, they might find their little butts in jail, right next to someone who's been there for years and is looking for a new girl friend.

We will soon be printing their names and pictures.

We will find you.

You cannot hide.

Stay tuned


Well, good luck with that. It tends to be a lot harder to identify folks behind a DDoS attack than you might think. Also, I'm curious why the FBI even cares, but we've seen the FBI kowtow to celebrities in the past, so it's possible. Either way, all this has done, so far, is to get Anonymous back to taking down Simmons' website. My guess is that, just like his previous comments, this looks like Simmons as all-talk-and-no-action. But, the more he tries to become the latest version of Lars Ulrich, the more he's going to regret it.