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Lawsuits, profanity, and hypocrisy abound as KISS frontman offers his "unique perspective" on the music industry's woes.

Billboard Magazine recently had a chance to speak with the front man and founding member of KISS, Gene Simmons, about the band and about the music industry as a whole. While the questions about upcoming releases and tours were answered in a fairly standard manner, bringing up new music must have touched on a rather sore point for Mr. Simmons.

While artists are certainly not expected to like the idea of a listener having downloaded their hard work, Gene Simmons evidently would rather not have the listeners at all, saying that "Every little college kid ... should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning."

When the interviewer turned the conversation to artists such as Radiohead and Trent Reznor, who are offering free downloads and a "pay if you want to" purchasing model, the abuse continued. "I open a store and say 'Come on in and pay whatever you want.' Are you on f---ing crack? Do you really believe that's a business model that works?"

Evidently the $2.7 million USD grossed by Radiohead on the first day of sales "doesn't work" well enough.

But according to Gene, it's not about the money. "The most important part is the music. Without that, why would you care?"

No doubt a smaller band, playing music for the fun of it, might agree -- but coming from the mouth of a man with a reality show on A&E in its third season, a cartoon on Nickelodeon, his own book publishing company, and a band that has branded merchandise from lighters to condoms to comic books -- it's a little hard to believe that it's still "about the music."

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Nice job
By Polynikes on 11/16/2007 12:36:57 PM , Rating: 5
I couldn't agree with you more, Chris. Wow, what an asshole.

One pirated album is worth my car and home? Try $7.99, Gene. That's the cost of your band's album, Kiss (self-titled), on iTunes.

It's not our fault you didn't have the means to copy records easily when you were college-aged. Don't ask me why, but I expect there's a really, really good chance you would've done it, had it been possible.




RE: Nice job
By masher2 (blog) on 11/16/2007 2:04:34 PM , Rating: 3
> "One pirated album is worth my car and home? Try $7.99, Gene"

There's a basic principle here that, for deterrence to work, the punishment for a crime has to be much more severe than the potential benefit of that crime. Otherwise, expectation value (net benefit) of that crime is always positive.

For instance, if the punishment for shoplifting a $50 piece of clothing is only $50, why would anyone ever pay? They'd simply steal what they wanted, and, if caught, pay the fine. There'd actually be a disincentive to buy the product.

I really don't see a problem with stiff penalties. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Now, if you want to argue that the penalty here is disproportionate to other, more serious crimes, I would tend to agree. But I'd argue that, instead of weakening the punishment here, we should simply strengthen it in those areas.


RE: Nice job
By sj420 on 11/16/2007 2:20:11 PM , Rating: 2
Well, how many people actually go out of their way to download an album? Me Personally? I hardly EVER download music. Simlpy because I don't like the music of today, its junk to me. However if one of our old cds gets busted up, too scratched to play, or whatever I might go and find it on the net if one of my family members *HAS* to listen to the Cd - but I typically don't care to dl music. It is the easiest way to find rare old music that you could never find to buy, or it is a rare band, or whatever, the best thing to do is find it on the net not go down to your local music store. Retail doesn't have anything, as the savvy know, we must go to the nets to even buy the goods we want to buy. For example, you don't see a savvy builder going to walmart to build his PC with walmart junk components.

The point is - if the content was worth it people would be willing to pay for it. Sometimes people will pay ridiculous amounts just to get what they want. Well the artists want to do what they want, which includes release crappy music and expect it to be platinum within the next 3 months while charging too damn much for some plastic and some music. Besides the "price it anything you want" isn't a business practice, it isn't a business model. It is called caring about what your consumer thinks and that is what counts.

People can download it for free, listen to it, and then deem to pay what they see fit. That is what is happening and the nice thing about it is that the BAND gets the money, not the middle man corporate execs that steal 85%+ on average for the bands work.

If this dumb gene guy complaining about piracy knew a thing or two he would know why people pirate. He is just an idiot that wants to complain because he isn't still making enough royalties. Well he can shove his royalties up his arse.


RE: Nice job
By masher2 (blog) on 11/16/2007 2:28:27 PM , Rating: 2
> "Well, how many people actually go out of their way to download an album? "

Are you serious? Torrent sites are among the most popular ones on the Net. Visit any large college campus (and many high schools) and you'll find countless students with thousands of downloaded songs and near-zero expenditure on purchased music. According to many sources, music and video downloads constitute the bulk of Internet traffic

Whatever your opinion on the subject, to deny that illegal music downloads aren't occurring at an enormous rate is simply to stick one's head in the sand.


RE: Nice job
By petergl on 11/16/2007 2:55:35 PM , Rating: 4
Not to keep at you, masher, but your previous suggestion to stiffen penalites isn't a wise one. Any basic criminology course or book can give you a plethora of evidence against the real-world impact of deterrence.

In situations where strong deterrents have had an immediately positive effect, the effect is rarely sustainable. There's no easy solution to crime (which isn't to say there aren't a lot of ways to combat it) but harsher-punishment deterrence has brought about just as many - if not more - secondary-offenders as it has actually deterred would-be criminals.


RE: Nice job
By masher2 (blog) on 11/16/07, Rating: -1
RE: Nice job
By petergl on 11/16/2007 3:22:42 PM , Rating: 3
Your last statement is essentially correct - celerity and certainty (the normal criminological terms) - have a dramatic effect on crime. When dealing with the majority of criminals (and I'm not talking about music-downloading college kids), however - secondary-offenders for whom crime is a way of life (very often because of the debilitating effect of prisons, in the first place), spur-of-the-moment, intoxicated/substance-abusing criminals who don't even consider potential punishments (and there's a lot of these), and those who "feel" (whether or not they actually are) so desperate that the risk of reward far outweighs the risk of punishment - normal deterrents (i.e. "severity" of punishment, as opposed to "celerity" and "certainty") don't even register in their minds or do so escapingly quickly.

And, if you're concerned that "certainty" of punishment, from a law enforcement perspective, isn't usually readily achievable, you're where I am; I, for one (I'm sure there are more socially-acceptable solutions), think the best solution is complete disregard for the privacy of the people. Was it on a DT article that I read about some laser which could detect alcohol in someone's blood? They should install it in every single car steering wheel.

In the end, education and equalization are probably the most effective ways to reduce crime. Until that's ever realized (i.e. until we learn to use the carrot instead of the stick), you can expect locking people away in prison to be America's most "adequate" solution to crime.


RE: Nice job
By masher2 (blog) on 11/16/2007 3:45:16 PM , Rating: 1
> "In the end, education and equalization are probably the most effective ways to reduce crime. Until that's ever realized..."

Piffle and nonsense. When education was hard to obtain and expensive, people valued it. My great-grandfather studied both Latin and calculus starting in the 8th grade. Now that we've made education free, most high school seniors can't even find America on the map, and we have to threaten to take away their drivers licenses to keep them in school.

Anyone in the nation can get a free education through high school, and with a modicum of good grades and test scores, a free college education as well. Has that helped reduce crime? Our inner cities get more violent every year.

As for "equalization", wealth-redistribution is already by far the largest line item on the federal budget, exceeding all other expenditures combined. All it's done is create a large, permanently-disempowered welfare class, wholly unable to support themselves in any way.

Honestly, I find nothing more offensive than the attitude that increased handouts are going to solve all the ills of society. Do people have no ability whatsoever to learn from history? These social experiments have been tried before. They fail, always and utterly.

Punishment deters crime, plain and simple. Even a cockroach can learn to avoid unpleasant results. But in today's society, when committing a serious, violent crime means only a small chance of possibly, eventually spending a little time watching movies and playing basketball in a government "correctional" facility, there is no deterrence. And you wonder why longer sentences don't work? Don't make me laugh.


RE: Nice job
By petergl on 11/16/2007 4:54:04 PM , Rating: 4
masher, it's hard to call attention to your naiveness in this subject; I know from reading the forums that you're clearly more educated than me in a variety of sciences... apparently the social sciences aren't among them.

Regarding your grandfather, I obviously don't know the exact reasons he yearned for education. Perhaps he merely wanted success or perhaps he wanted security for his family. As long as we're relying on little anecdotes, what about Leonardo Da Vinci? I'm sure some history buffs could confirm that he never hurt for money or security in his younger years, yet his curiosity for intellect never died out; I'm sure those same history buffs could point out a lot of other examples.

But more importantly, the educational system in America sucks. And it doesn't just suck from a knowledge-inducing perspective, it also sucks from a "how to be a good citizen" perspective. The distance that has grown between the government and the citizenry - which could certainly be resolved with better education - is absolutely ridiculous. The government is the people... except no one seems to remember that. If more of us did, there'd be a lot more cooperation towards achieving higher societal standards - including the push for better education and better alternatives for crime reduction - and a lot less isolationist rogues (like criminals).

In regards to the inner-city violence, why rule out the effectivenesss or importance of education? The education sucks most there. Those kids are often allowed to pass without half the measure of work that other kids, from more affluent areas, are made to do. And here's the important part: that failure of education - much like the growing crime trends in those areas - is not their fault . Education doesn't play any kind of significant role there; how can you assume it would have a null effect?

quote:
Honestly, I find nothing more offensive than the attitude that increased handouts are going to solve all the ills of society.


Again, with the assumptions, masher? Did I say people should get handouts? If it hasn't become clear, I study sociology, so I know the kinds of problems welfare and other freebies have caused. You seem to think you're talking to a child.

On the note of child-like logic, exactly how many of these "social experiments" have been tried before? Any number even remotely statistically significant? Even if hundreds of these programs had been tried, they're each so different from the next that comparing them to one another - let alone against the whole of them - is just plain ignorant.

I wish you'd bothered to address a single one of my points on deterrence, masher; I guess we're not having a thoughtful and civilized argument. The harsher deterrents get, the less effective they are and the more life-long criminals they create. But you go ahead and keep on pushing for punishments. I hope to be long gone when your mile-high prisons collapse around you.

And just to be clear: I'm not in the business of making you laugh, I'm in the business of making you stop with your "common sense" and resume some scholarly sense. Take a criminology course - it'd be a for a lot more than just the sake of my patience.


RE: Nice job
By masher2 (blog) on 11/16/2007 5:35:36 PM , Rating: 1
> "In regards to the inner-city violence, why rule out the effectivenesss or importance of education?"

I think you've misunderstood me. I'm not ruling out the value of a good education-- far from it. I'm dipusting the attitude that offering more of our free, pap-dispensing K-12 system is going to correct anything. A larger budget, more teachers, more programs, larger and more expensive inner-city schools...that's not going to help one bit.

> "As long as we're relying on little anecdotes, what about Leonardo Da Vinci? "

I'm not quite sure of your point. Are you disputing that our educational system has declined over the past century? I would think its a well-documented fact. I know with certainty the curriculum my great-grandfather experienced in the 8th grade was more difficult and challenging than the average 12th grade education of today.

> "Did I say people should get handouts? "

I believe the meaning of the word "equalization", when translated by sociology majors into recommendations for action, ultimately takes the form of government-administered handouts. If I've misunderstood you, then I'm more than willing to be corrected.


RE: Nice job
By petergl on 11/16/2007 7:02:24 PM , Rating: 5
I did misunderstand you in the first instance, a different misunderstanding lead to the confusion in the second instance (I do think the quality of education has plummetted), and you did misunderstand me in the third instance (although you'd probably still disagree with my intentions): working with the system as it is now, I would probably favor a lot of radical policy changes/implementations which would make vast personal wealth much less sustainable; although no money would be given directly to the impoverished, corporate/wealthy taxations would (again, probably) go to combating some important sources of crime, like weak education programs, better rehabilitation programs for the incarcerated, etc.

I know that's not very technical or thorough and sounds a lot what some people are already trying to get done these days but I haven't (recently) done a whole lot of thinking, reading, or research on the specific policy changes I'd implement. The larger point is that I don't think we're just supposed to convert to some socialist state to "equalize" and fight crime problems; I think much of that end can be achieved with some [radical] policy changes here & now.

Again, sorry I don't have any real examples or evidence. Perhaps, though, we've achieved some small measure of agreement between us ;)


RE: Nice job
By XtremeM3 on 11/18/2007 3:01:01 AM , Rating: 2
I have to say, while you both make good points, I strongly agree with Masher on the punishment issue. Harsher punishments do act as a better deterent for crime. I can think of 2 examples right off the top of my head.

1. Theft in Saudi. Chop - you can lose your hand. Yes still done today. Awesome deterent for theft. Does theft still occur? Yes. As frequent as in the states, not even close (with Saudi being a much less educated country - it doesn't take an educated man to realize it would suck to not have your right hand). I've been living in the middle east for a few years now, theft is one of the things I rarely worry about. So there is a great example of a strong punishment acting as a deterent for crime. Call it over the top, or extreme or whatever. I'd be fine for that, as I hate theives. As a victim of theft, I'm all for harsher punishments. There are few things worse than having something that you've worked for taken from you by someone too lazy to work for it themselves.

2. I spent some time in Az a while back, just for vacation. I had friends that were 110% against driving after drinking anything, mainly because at the time there was a mandatory stay involved at the "pink underwear" prison. That's what was told to me while I was there anyway. Now, being told that, true or not, no-one wanted to risk it because of the penalty. I've seen alot of people drive after drinking, but when you know you'd be facing some time in the "pink underwear" prison, instead of at most an overnighter, a fine and higher insurance... you're much less likely to commit the offense. Not to say that it's ok to drink and drive if the penalty isn't harsh but just as an example as harsher punishment acting as a deterent.

Jeff


RE: Nice job
By A5un on 11/17/2007 9:04:35 PM , Rating: 1
Obviously, you're not from the "inner cities." You don't seem to realize the different world in which these people live. When we were in high school, we sat in class. Took notes. Went home. Then had dinner with family. Then off we went to study, watch TV, talk on the phone.

Now consider this. In these "inner cities," teenagers go home to find police at their house with a warrant. Every so often, the police would come by to visit because maybe some of their family member has a history. Worse yet, when the police do find "something," the adult points to the kids to have them take the fall for it. I can't even begin to imagine the constant state of distress these kids are in. What did we ever have to worry about in high school? Getting thrown in jail for something you didn't do probably wasn't one of them. And what I just said is a true event that did happen. One of my friends had spent a night in jail, along with a 14 year old boy. That was how the boy got there.

Here's another one for y'all. A girl that had gotten admitted to Harvard from my school had to sleep as soon as she got home so she can wake up to study through the night, during when no one would be awake. During when she won't be bothered by her parents' constant yelling and arguing. During when she won't hear things thrown around the house. During when she can be along. You think these parents would care to put down money for their kids to go to school, all 12 years of it? A lot of Hispanic children I know wake up at 5 in the morning to do yard work with their parents before they got to school. If education weren't free, they'd probably end up doing yard work the entire day.

When free education is taken away, all these kids will end up in the street, doing whatever they can to survive because no employer would hire them due to the lack of high school diploma, and they can't go to school because their parents won't put in the money to get them to school. This will only increase the crime figures. So yes, education and equalization ARE the most effective ways to reduce crime. You're already enjoying the result of free education. Without a free education, we'd be in a worse situation.


RE: Nice job
By masher2 (blog) on 11/18/2007 12:14:53 PM , Rating: 3
> "Obviously, you're not from the "inner cities." You don't seem to realize the different world in which these people live"

For your use of the phrase "these people", it's certain you didn't grow up in an inner city. Personally, I did-- 6 years of childhood, at least. The problem there is the culture of permissiveness, spread by educators, poor parenting, and society and large-- including people like you.

When you constantly bombard these children with the subtle, derogatory message that "it's not their fault", it has real effect. It not only tells them that success is out of their grasp, but more importantly, it tells them they won't be blamed for mistakes. Make bad grades? Steal a car? Shoot someone? Don't worry boy...its not your fault. It's society's fault for putting you here.

And you wonder why most of them live up to your expectations? Don't make me laugh.

> "When free education is taken away..."

Who said anything about disbanding free education? If you think I've even come close to advocating that, I strongly suggest you reread my postings.


RE: Nice job
By scrapsma54 on 11/19/2007 7:05:20 PM , Rating: 2
So bottom line is guys:
"If you are pirating, Don't get caught."