The publishing company that owns the rights to Alice Cooper's song "Eighteen" alleges that the new Kiss number is too similar to Cooper's 1971 hit.

Six Palms Music Corp., which is the exclusive administrator of the Cooper song's publishing rights, claims that Stanley's familiarity with "Eighteen" is "unquestionable." According to Martin Keleti, the lawyer representing Six Palms, the reasoning is that Cooper and Kiss both came to fame in the early '70s and share relatively the same musical genre.

"The song is substantially similar, strikingly similar -- it's a rip-off, if you will, of 'Eighteen,' " said Keleti, who practices in the Hollywood music-law firm Cohen and Cohen.

Kiss' publishing company, PolyGram International, and record company, Mercury, are named in the suit along with Stanley and Kulick, who is the band's former axman and Stanley's current songwriting partner. The complaint was filed Oct. 21 in United States District Court in Los Angeles.

Legal counsel for Kiss could not be reached for comment Thursday (Oct. 29). The band's Mercury publicist, Jolyn Matsumuro, had no comment.

Keleti said the amount of the lawsuit will depend on the sales of Psycho-Circus, which, in concert and in its accompanying art, is being promoted as a 3-D rock experience. It is the first record in almost 20 years featuring Kiss' original lineup. "Depending on how good of a sell this is for Kiss, this could be hundreds or thousands of dollars," Keleti said.

This week, the album holds the #75 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart; it has sold 218,000 copies as of Oct. 28, according to SoundScan.

According to Cooper's manager, Toby Mamis, Cooper has no involvement in the lawsuit and had not yet heard the song as of Wednesday night.

"It's not our company, and we didn't know about it," Mamis said. He said that he and Cooper plan to listen to "Dreamin' " and added that his client is friends with Stanley and Kulick.

Cooper wrote "Eighteen" along with his bandmembers, Neal Smith, Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce and Dennis Dunaway. The song first appeared on the album Love It to Death and has subsequently appeared on numerous compilation albums.

More than 1 million copies of products featuring "Eighteen" have been sold, the suit states. Additionally, the suit claims that the song has been publicly performed on radio, television and in live settings hundreds of thousands of times.

"It's a hit song; it's not some obscure song," Keleti said.

Keleti added that Six Palms, which also does business as Bizarre Music, became aware of the similarity between the two songs via a number of sources, including Kiss discussion groups and fan groups. "Even among Kiss fans, the striking similarity has been noted," Keleti said, adding that the songs are only similar musically, not lyrically.

Kiss fan Eva Gordon, 21, said she believes the songs are similar but not necessarily similar beyond coincidence. "I've only heard the Alice Cooper song a couple times," she wrote in an e-mail. "They're alike, but they're pretty different, too. Good thing I'm not the judge, huh?"

Kiss kick off the 3-D "Psycho-Circus Tour" on Saturday at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, with alternative-rockers Smashing Pumpkins as the one-time opening act.

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