Technology Gene Simmons Threatens Anonymous, Responds to DDoS Attacks Against His Site

[The Helper]

"Some of you may have heard a few popcorn farts re: our sites being threatened by hackers," wrote KISS bassist Gene Simmons on his website yesterday, responding to a DDoS attack that took down GeneSimmons.com earlier this week.

The attack was part of Operation Payback, a campaign that over the past few weeks has been targeting organizations who legislate and litigate in support of copyright laws. Loosely organized by Anonymous, a group of Internet "vigilantes" has launched a series of denial-of-service attacks against the likes of the MPAA, the RIAA, the UK Intellectual Property Office, as well as against the KISS bassman.

The direct action campaign has effectively shut down sites that have been most vocal (and litigious) about their pro-copyright and anti-piracy stances. It has also targeted law offices that have been deemed to be part of a what TorrentFreak has called "pay-up-or-else" schemes, threats of legal action aimed at alleged file-sharers. Anonymous's DDoS attacks have targeted well over a dozen sites over the past few weeks.

According to TorrentFreak, the attacks against Gene Simmons were controversial among those associated with Anonymous, some arguing that it's better to target the legal mechanisms of the film and music industry, rather than artist themselves. But Simmons has painted a fairly large target on himself (or on his site, at least), by speaking out in recent weeks against file-sharing, arguing that the music industry should be suing more people: "Make sure your brand is protected, be litigious, sue anybody - take their homes, their cars, Don't let anybody cross that line."

Gene Simmons Threatens Anonymous, Responds to DDoS Attacks Against His Site

readwrite.com

 

[seph ir oth]

sue anybody - take their homes, their cars

What a douche. If I were a musician, I'd be honored if someone illegally downloaded the song. That means they went the extra step (and risk) to get it, and they like my song.

I like what some other bands are doing, e.g., openly giving their album away but you can buy the album with extras at stores. That's what they should be moving towards anyways. More and more of their funds come from concerts and not from song sales.

As someone already said on the article website:

"It's one thing to piss of Anonymous, it's another to piss off Anonymous and then try to fight back.

Good luck, Gene."

 

[Hatebreeder]

It's just a song.
Besides, I don't think a musician is worth anything if the records are good but the live shows sucks.

Gene should value live performance more and stop wasting his time and money trying to find out who illegally downloaded a song off of his Website.

... Get over it?

 

[Jesus4Lyf]

It's just a song.

... Get over it?

It's just your job. Get over it.

Still, lololol saying the FBI has found the source of a DDoS attack...

 

[Hatebreeder]

It's just your job. Get over it.

Still, lololol saying the FBI has found the source of a DDoS attack...

He is a musician. Not a producer. And if he is, then he sucks as a producer.

That aside, did the FBI look at how often the site was called or how often a function was called to determine the source? >_>

 

[BANANAMAN]

Now that i study in IT with a specialization in Game Design and Development. (It's a course with both math,Programming and Artistic Elements).I really hate Piracy now.

I mean when you're leeching off people by downloading free stuff that's supposed to be payed for it's no problem to you.But when people start leeching off your work,your talent which created a product which COULD be earning you money to support your lifestyle through weeks,months even YEARS of hard work it's suddenly a very big deal.

Don't support Piracy.It's just wrong,How would you like it if someone stole your money?

And don't get me wrong I don't mind the concept of Open Software. It's just that when people create something and they want to be payed for it then they should be payed for it.It would be their decision on whether or not to share it for free or to sell it to those willing to pay for their product.

 

[Hatebreeder]

It's pretty easy to stop people from taking your stuff unwanted.
Just don't put it in the internet and instead sell CDs.

Even if people would crack the CD and make it free for others to use, one could still use a method like SCII did with the internet.

 

[Flare]

Even if people would crack the CD and make it free for others to use, one could still use a method like SCII did with the internet.

"Check out this new CD that I bought - I would've downloaded it from <insert legit source>, but my internet connection is pretty crap" (e.g. Irish broadband, or any type of internet connection )

"You require an internet connection to listen to this CD"

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

 

[Hatebreeder]

"Check out this new CD that I bought - I would've downloaded it from <insert legit source>, but my internet connection is pretty crap" (e.g. Irish broadband, or any type of internet connection )

"You require an internet connection to listen to this CD"

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

It's a measure to protect your stuff =P

 

[Slapshot136]

It's a measure to protect your stuff =P

which encourages piracy more then it prevents it, how many games have been pirated because of crap like that? (requires an internet connection to play) - guess what, the pirated versions don't, so lets suppose a person DOES buy the game and pays for it - they would still have a reason to pirate it anyways because the "legal" version sucks

 

[Ninja_sheep]

I actually think it's sort of a strech to say Anonymouse did something.


And all those DDOS attacks are kinda meh anyway.
All they do is shut down some website nobody cares about anyway for a day or two.

 

[phyrex1an]

It's just wrong,How would you like it if someone stole your money?

Please don't be the person who equate piracy with theft. You can't support that thesis with any argument from law. You can say that it's wrong, because then you just have to argument from ethics. But the laws around the world are pretty clear: Piracy is not theft, it's copyright infringement.
Unless you're talking about the pirates off Somalia's coast ofc.

It's just that when people create something and they want to be payed for it then they should be payed for it.

You got this completely wrong.
If people wants to pay for something and you create it for them, then you should be payed for it. That's how it works in real life.
This is ofc not an argument for piracy, but it is certainly an argument against many of the music industries practices. Eg, in Sweden you MUST pay the music industry a set amount of money if you buy a hard drive no matter what you are about to use it for. This pretty much steams from the idea what you deserve to get payed just because you do a job, even though no one wants to pay you for that job.

Edit: Split this to debates?

 

[JerseyFoo]

which COULD

Say a parallel world existed where people COULD NOT freely download the same virtual products, would they buy them?

freely download != buy (fairly certain)

So what says they would buy them?

With virtual products; Quantity = Infinity

That causes the above graph to flatline on the x-axis. The optimal demand for a virtual product is always at price=$0. This causes a unique situation where only the perceptual quality of a individual product matters.

The conversion of units of perceptual quality -> price is relative to every single person. Perhaps to confuse things even more, the price affects the perceptual quality. Many people view free virtual products as having better quality. It is the opposite of real-world products.

Point is; Nothing says that they would buy them. You are assuming things based on sociological conditioning.

More things to consider;

• People often download products 'illegally' to try them out, and then don't use them.
• e-Piracy is a complex issue. It isn't simply people dodging having to pay.
• Don't confuse "life is unfair" with software piracy.
• If you borrow a friend's wrench for a moment, should you send the wrench company the full price of the wrench?

 

[BANANAMAN]

Please don't be the person who equate piracy with theft. You can't support that thesis with any argument from law. You can say that it's wrong, because then you just have to argument from ethics. But the laws around the world are pretty clear: Piracy is not theft, it's copyright infringement.
Unless you're talking about the pirates off Somalia's coast ofc.


Edit: Split this to debates?

How is it not theft? People would buy a product originally made by your own hands from someone else without you getting payed for it.Basically since they took your product/idea and made it theirs (Isn't that the basis of copyright infringement?) and they would in turn receive money from selling it themselves.But they won't give you a portion of the profits they've earned from your hard work.

Imagine if you made let's say a hotdog sandwich.You spent around an hour cooking the hotdog,preparing the sauces,etc.You leave it on the table to go to the bathroom only to return to find it missing.

You see your asshole brother outside with your hotdog which he just sold to some passerby for $40.Naturally you feel that your brother should at least cut you in with his profits right?

But of course he says "Fuck you.This is my money not yours" even though it was your hotdog that got him the $40 bucks.

He stole not only your idea but a possible source of income.

So how is Piracy not theft? Since denying people of the money they could have earned is almost the same as stealing the money they did earn.

 

[phyrex1an]

So how is Piracy not theft?

Because no laws around the world says it is theft.
We have different laws for intellectual property rights and "normal" property rights. Theft is only a concept under "normal" property rights.

Here is an introduction to the distinction if it hard for you to understand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#.22Theft.22

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowling_v._United_States_(1985) is rather important too because this is a court ruling that piracy can't be considered theft under US law (ofc, copyright laws has changed since then but not with the purpose of changing this particular ruling).

 

[Ninja_sheep]

You're right from a legal perspective.

To me it's still a kind of theft (even if not legally).

Oh well, anyway that's not the most important point if you ask me.
I just hate it when people try to justify with some weird argument saying it isn't 'bad' (ethnically speaking).

If you have to say something for piracy then say that a single person won't make a difference or that you just don't care some people don't make as much money (that's how I do it).

 

[ReVolver]

Spoiler

 

[Ninja_sheep]

Intellectual property causes artificial scarcity

Yep, that's pretty much what I was talking about in my post.

It's really not that hard to imagine what the world would be like without intellectual property.

 

[phyrex1an]

It's really not that hard to imagine what the world would be like without intellectual property.

I don't really agree. Well, ofc, the world wouldn't collapse upon itself and the sun explode in a rain of unicorns. But I don't think the economical changes are completely obvious. This is from someone who've never read anything above high school grade economics, perhaps someone with better education than me finds this completely obvious

Patents, I don't think the the outcome of removing patents is completely trivial, for some areas (such as software and medicine) I think it would be net positive. For software you can just point out that most of the world doesn't have software patents and still seems to be doing quite fine. For medicine I'm tempted to fall back on an ethical argument, don't really know enough to do an economical one.
The "problem" with patents is that they is one (perhaps the only) initiative for companies to release information to the public. As a reward they get a state sanctioned monopoly for a set amount of time. Without patents there is a risk that companies would start to keep everything secret. However, removing patents would open up the market for competition (by definition of monopoly). The ethical argument here is ofc that monopolies on techniques that saves lives kills people.

Trademarks, I think would be best to leave trademarks alone. Can't really see how removing trademarks would have any positive effect. Trademarks are essential for customers to know what they are buying and trademarks laws are already rather restrictive. For example, you must actively enforce a trademark or otherwise you'll lose it.

Copyright. The only think I can say reliably is that copyright law should be changed in the more permissive direction. I don't think a complete removal is warranted but say lets start with shortening the copyright duration to 10 years of after creation instead of 70 years after death of author.

 

[Ninja_sheep]

Well, the most important point is that without patents there would be way less innovation and research because the minute you figure out some new way to make an engine or a medication every competitor is going to copy your invention right away and you won't really get any advantage on the market but still pay for the research.
Or if you have a company that makes movies and there is no intellectual property every movie theater is just going to take your film and show it to the audience without paying you a dime. No more holywood :/

I gotta agree with you on that copyright thing. It's way too long right now.