Some musicians are very open to people sharing music with their friends. As long as someone is listening, they don't mind. However, not all musicians are as easy going as all that and rock god Gene Simmons counts himself among the latter.
Gene Simmons has made headlines after airing his very strong opinions on P2P and music piracy. Earlier this week, Gene was speaking at the MIPCOM convention in Cannes, France, and he advised people to protect their brand and be ready to lawyer up at a moment's notice.
"Make sure your brand is protected," Ars Technica cites Simmons as saying. "Make sure there are no incursions. Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars. Don't let anybody cross that line."
Simmons goes on to blame the music industry for not being tougher on offenders from the very beginning.
"The music industry was asleep at the wheel and didn't have the balls to sue every fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid who downloaded material," he said, "And so now we're left with hundreds of thousands of people without jobs. There's no industry."
Simmons goes on to liken the music industry's reaction to piracy to a farmer letting a fox steal an chicken egg because he's cute.
"But that little fox went back with a free egg," Simmons is quoted as saying, "and told all the other little foxes about it, and then the foxes overran the farm, killed all the chickens, took all the eggs, and didn't pay for it."
Things don't go well for the farmer after that. After losing all of his eggs, his wife divorces him and his kids run away.
"Now the farmer lost his farm. His wife divorced him and went with another farmer who was smarter. The kids ran off because the spineless farmer didn't have enough sense to kill the fox. The trucks that delivered the chickens—they're all out of business. The stores that sold them—they're out of business."
Simmons finishes the story with a warning: "So don't let any cute little foxes get near your hen house!"
Luckily, piracy hasn't put Simmons out of work. Earlier this week KISS launched their own line of HDTVs and Gene mentioned highlighted them when speaking about how to build a successful entertainment brand.
"Everything from KISS condoms to KISS caskets. We'll get you coming and we'll get you going. We literally have everything from KISS Hi-Def television sets that are about to come on the market to KISS Motorcycles," he said, before adding, "Well, it's Planet KISS. Oh, I've already trademarked that, I forgot that."
Tom's Guide
Hmmm, it will take him a long time if he includes people who download Youtube videos and convert them to MP3s.
Gene Simmons has made headlines after airing his very strong opinions on P2P and music piracy. Earlier this week, Gene was speaking at the MIPCOM convention in Cannes, France, and he advised people to protect their brand and be ready to lawyer up at a moment's notice.
"Make sure your brand is protected," Ars Technica cites Simmons as saying. "Make sure there are no incursions. Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars. Don't let anybody cross that line."
Simmons goes on to blame the music industry for not being tougher on offenders from the very beginning.
"The music industry was asleep at the wheel and didn't have the balls to sue every fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid who downloaded material," he said, "And so now we're left with hundreds of thousands of people without jobs. There's no industry."
Simmons goes on to liken the music industry's reaction to piracy to a farmer letting a fox steal an chicken egg because he's cute.
"But that little fox went back with a free egg," Simmons is quoted as saying, "and told all the other little foxes about it, and then the foxes overran the farm, killed all the chickens, took all the eggs, and didn't pay for it."
Things don't go well for the farmer after that. After losing all of his eggs, his wife divorces him and his kids run away.
"Now the farmer lost his farm. His wife divorced him and went with another farmer who was smarter. The kids ran off because the spineless farmer didn't have enough sense to kill the fox. The trucks that delivered the chickens—they're all out of business. The stores that sold them—they're out of business."
Simmons finishes the story with a warning: "So don't let any cute little foxes get near your hen house!"
Luckily, piracy hasn't put Simmons out of work. Earlier this week KISS launched their own line of HDTVs and Gene mentioned highlighted them when speaking about how to build a successful entertainment brand.
"Everything from KISS condoms to KISS caskets. We'll get you coming and we'll get you going. We literally have everything from KISS Hi-Def television sets that are about to come on the market to KISS Motorcycles," he said, before adding, "Well, it's Planet KISS. Oh, I've already trademarked that, I forgot that."
Tom's Guide
Hmmm, it will take him a long time if he includes people who download Youtube videos and convert them to MP3s.
