Porn Valley- The more you hear about the Gene Simmons sex tape, the more you believe Simmons is the mastermind behind a cleverly delivered feint, parry and thrust when it comes to publicity campaigns.

But Kevin Blatt, the Indiana Jones of celebrity sex tapes, is still convinced that Simmons is an aggrieved party, although Blatt will admit that the story as it currently stands is one of blind alleys, cul de sacs and dead leads.

The latest snake in the case of snake oil is new information that the girl in the tape with Simmons couldn’t be a Frank’s Energy Drink girl as had been previously stated. That’s if you’re to believe that an attorney’s letter currently residing on www.valleywag.com is an authentic one.

The letter, addressed to valleywag, calls for a cease and desist of the site’s streaming the video. The letter goes on to describe how Allied Industry [a Simmons company] acquired the tape in 2003 from one Traci Anna Koval and thus own all rights to it.

On the surface of these claims, one can draw one very simple conclusion: that neither Frank’s Energy Drink nor any spokesmodel for them has anything to do with this tape. When existence of the tape was first made public this week, the girl in the video was identified as a Frank’s Energy Drink spokesmodel.

But since Frank’s didn’t launch until 2006, the story resides now as a fabrication choked by its own timeline if you reject the previous claim that the tape was shot last November in Vancouver.

“It’s not the girl from Frank’s Energy Drink,” Blatt agrees. Regarding Koval, Blatt says, yes, the dummy company bought the tape from her. That much he was able to verify.

At this point, it’s, however, reasonable to believe that it being Simmons’ tape and property, he might have had something to do with its release. Blatt thinks not.

“Gene’s claiming he knew about this all along,” says Blatt. “But it was quashed in 2003. But it wasn’t quashed, obviously. Somebody got a copy of the tape.”

Although Blatt sees how you can take the position that Simmons is behind all of this.

“But trust me when I tell you that he is a victim,” states Blatt. “Because I know about the phone calls people are getting from the attorneys. He’s freaking. He didn’t want this out there- that I can guarantee you.”

According to Blatt, Simmons is insisting that the tape was shot surreptitiously.

“When he discovered the tape was out there, he bought the copyrights back. The whole story makes no sense.”

“The guys who put it out there knew this was a cock and bull story,” Blatt continues. Blatt’s referring to the people behind GenesSecret.com – a Panamanian outfit called Stormfront Corp headed by Roberto Rodriguez which registered the site Jan. 6 and has been promoting the tape.

“They knew this chick wasn’t one of the Frank’s Energy Drink girls. They knew it was going to send people off looking in different directions. And that’s exactly what happened. I’m looking at it from the perspective of these guys. They pretty much set up my friend Andy [of Webmaster Central] who is serving the feeds on these websites.

“They [Simmons’ attorneys] go after Andy and tell him to take those feeds down immediately. That’s one day of trying to find out who Andy is. These guys are in a race against time to make as much money as possible.

“Obviously it sends the attorneys off on a wild goose chase looking at the Frank’s Energy Drink people,” concludes Blatt.

“They’re looking at Webmaster Central. They’re buying themselves time- that’s the way I see it. Because they’re looking everywhere to shut this thing down and the attorneys are also going after all these blogs like ValleyWag trying to quash this thing and make sure it doesn’t spread like wildfire.

“But you can’t un-ring a bell,” concludes Blatt. “Once it’s out there, it’s out there.”

Blatt thinks that Simmons is going to try to come up with a way to monetize the situation much in the way of the Paris Hilton tape.

“Hotelheiress.com is the only place legally online that you can see the Paris Hilton sex tape,” says Blatt.

“They have the legal copyright. The infringement is where the money’s to be made. So all the sites right now that are carrying the Paris Hilton don’t have the rights except HotelHeiress. That’s why they’re going after everybody and suing those who have the tape on their website. And there are thousands of people infringing. The only way you can do that is if you prove you have the copyright. That’s why the attorneys are coming out saying Gene has this copyright.

“It’s a scare tactic to say you must take the tape down and you must pay Gene for any money he may have profited during the period of time this thing was up.”

“And that’s where Gene is going hogwild on people,” Blatt continues. “The good thing is nobody’s ripped the video and set up another pay site. Although there will probably be those sites popping up like in the Netherlands. He’s going to be going after people for years on this thing and the best thing he’s going to do is get people to capitulate.”

As far as the method for shooting this video on the sneak, Blatt says it had to be a hidden camera for sure.

“It’s easy to do.”

How the tape leaked out of Simmons hands begs a lot of questions, though, as to Simmons own forthrightness.

Was it stolen? Was it handed over with a nudge and a wink?

Blatt’s guessing that the attorneys went to Koval telling her they wanted all copies of the tape.

“This is what happened to me when I got served by the Hiltons,” says Blatt. “They wanted original copies, e-mails, they wanted every single person that we sent that clip to. They wanted to nip it in the bud. The problem is you can only get so much of that information. Even if you have that tape, what could keep me from making another copy of the Paris Hilton tape and never telling anybody I had it? There’s a lot of Traci Lords videos that are probably sitting in peoples basements even though they’re not supposed to be out there.

“The more I look at it, it’s ingenious,” Blatt has to admit. “The whole thing is just ingenious on behalf of the company that put it out. It left a lot of questions. The thing they didn’t plan on, I’m sure of this, is that no mainstream press outlets reported on it. That is what’s amazing to me.”

[The San Francisco Chronicle did run a small a piece stating that AVN was selling the tape.]

Blatt says he heard that AVN did get a phone call.

“I heard that every single person that linked on that blog got a phone call or a letter.”

Blat figures that Simmons attorneys are probably charging him between $500 to $800 an hour to follow up with this investigation.

“I know this is going to be hours and hours of research.”

Skeptical me see it as an elaborate but ingenious marketing ploy.

“And that’s what the owners of this company told me they wanted to do,” says Blatt. “They wanted everybody to believe that Gene was involved with this thing. It’s ingeniously clever starting out with the Frank’s Energy drink pitch making it look like Gene was behind it.”

Blatt says the girl wearing pigtails in the Simmons tape is even dressed like one of the company’s spokesmodels which helped sell the ruse.

“The fact that these guys bullshitted me, I’m sure they bullshitted everybody along the way,” Blatt adds. “Even if Gene gets the site shut down there’s not much he can do at this point.

“But this is definitely one of the better illegal tapes- not for the quality of the content but the story behind it.”