Philosophy of Max Keiser Pt. 3: Hackers, Pirates, Hollywood Oligarchs & The Fight for Free Speech

The famed Max Keiser, spawn of Karmabanque, Hollywood Stock Exchange,The Silver Liberation Army, Crash JP Morgan Buy Silver, and more has demonstrated a clear development in his thinking over the nearly 10 years of his journalism. Silver Vigilante presents a series called “The Philosophy of Max Keiser,” which begins to summarize the episteme of Max Keiser, and how he believes change can be elicited in the casino gulag. This is part 3.

Philosophy of Max Keiser, pt 1

Philosophy of Max Keiser, pt. 2

“We hate banks here, but we hate Hollywood even more.” – Max Keiser

Alongside his financial and economic analysis, Max Keiser has been a staunch ally of free speech through protestation against current copyright law and the championing of a free market forum for ideas. The philosophical reasons against copyright law as they currently stand – that is a virtual monopoly over a piece of work for lifetime +70-75 years – are fairly simple. In order to have a vibrant society, diversity is a key ingredient. We see this in life on earth, insofar as the environment of the planet thrives on a diversity of life which spurs over time novel environmental niches and, ultimately, novel, new life.

Keiser understands this, and he acknowledges that so-called perpetual copyright laws deprive the public of what are essentially public goods. Wherefore? Without a cultural base on which to learn from and stand on, artists are effectively blank slates. Without a history of freely shared ideas, our culture would perpetually be inhibited by the learning curve of a newborn. Ideas are not bore out of a vacuum, and once a creator has passed on, there are no moral grounds for any entity or person to own the copyright of the material beyond familial ties or arrangements as stated by the artist him-or-herself.

A recent example of immoral copyright exploitation is the holographic resurrection of 2Pac by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. Max Keiser touched on this as it related to copyright law, as shown in the video below. In it, Keiser contends that the holographic representation of a deceased 2Pac was “milking the system unconscionably,” and that “Dr. Dre is milking the outdated copyright system, creating a digital rights ghetto.”

Later on in the same episode, Keiser speaks with Alec Empire of Atari Teenage Riot, who has been vocal on the issue of copyright. Empire says that he sees current copyright law and legislation like PIPA and SOPA leading towards crackdowns on freedom of speech. He believes the system (and copyright law) is setup to protect those in power.

It is already common sense that so much of the “art” that is produced by the Hollywood branch of the global oligarchy is mere propaganda and functions in our culture as a plug-in to the minds of the public, especially the young, for the promotion of corporate interest.

Global governments and corporate think-tank lobbyists such as RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America)and MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) have sued many innocent individuals for illegally downloading copyrighted material. Although drowned out by wallets that are the legacy of bailouts in the pockets of the Hollywood cartel of cultural oligarchs, many artists are nevertheless speaking out to accuse not the internet pirate of depriving them of income, but instead the corporate interests which illegitimately steward their industry.

Keiser prefers a return to prior renderings of copyright law. In 1976, he gives as an example on his show Keiser Report, the exclusive monopoly was handed to artists for approximately 48 years. Only via lobbying through Congress in the past half-century has the public domain effectively been negated by perpetual copyrights of the publisher on behalf of the artist.

Copyright law was originally designed to protect the artist, giving them exclusive rights to anything they had created which has sufficient materiality, which does not have to be much. It can be a song, a book, a statue, a picture, a painting –anything along these lines. Copyright law gives the artist a limited monopoly over how it is used. Such legal arrangements as copyright law exist to promote invention, because society wants books, wants songs, wants art and so on.

Copyright law offers the artists five exclusive rights: the right to reproduce, right to redistribute, right to make derivative works, right to public performance including tv and radio, and the right to publicly display work.

But exclusive rights have been compromised with the injection of money or bribery, as major corporations are buying the exclusive rights over their material in perpetuity, and not compensating their artists for their artists’ works. Companies like Disney lobby Congress so that they might enjoy perpetual monopoly’s over certain ideas, even if these ideas are ones they stole in the first place, such as is the history of the character Mickey Mouse.

Keiser believes that not only should Wall Street be occupied, but so too should Hollywood. Hollywood is practicing “copyright totalitarianism” and putting US citizens into a “copyright slave state” thereby “muzzling” free speech in the United States and world. As Keiser has said, “Hollywood hates artists unless they can exploit them and take all their freaking money and give them nothing in return.”

For more of Keiser’s analysis, see this episode of the Keiser Report, entitled “Kill Hollywood.”

With the decline of the Federal Reserve Note, and a general coming-to-our –senses of the public at large, Hollywood has seen its revenues decline. Piracy is just one symptom of the expiring cartel, and not, as the Hollywood oligarchy would lead us to believe, solely the effect of online file sharing. The causes for Hollywood’s shrinking revenues and worsening box office numbers are multifarious. The issues reach into the debasing of the Hollywood reserve currency, the Federal Reserve Note, as well as real competition, and not just by hackers and pirates.

Keiser reported in 2008-2009 in his blog for Huffington Post that bond trader Cantor Fiztgerald had filed an application with regulators with the intention of launching an exchange that allows users to hedge and speculate on the financial performances of movies, a technology discovered by Keiser.

Keiser, host of The Oracle on BBC World and podcast Truth About Markets, predicts that “the Cantor/HSX futures will actually drive the prices of stars, films, marketing and the industry as a whole DOWN:” a topsy-turvy world of rivals selling out rivals and driving down prices—perceptions included—for high prices are good marketing in America. Indeed, Max predicts the Hollywood cartel—at the forefront of the consciousness industry since the 1920’s—will enter into a period of infighting as each studio struggles to be the vanguard of Hollywood.

Simultaneously, with the internet much more material has been made available to interested individuals. Most likely millions of hours of footage has been uploaded to the internet by professional artists and amateur artists alike. Not only is this competition engaging the viewer, but, a considerable percentage of the time, offering the material for free. The internet has created a window into the entertainment world. Now, the newspaper, the film industry, the music industry, and the arts generally, are presented to us through only one medium: the internet. Despite its revolutionizing effects on culture, the internet is following an old business model for money velocity – and that is via advertisements.

In the newspaper industry, what’s up is down when looked upon by an outsider. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, insiders refer to the content or articles as the filler, and the advertisements as the content. With this old-school model of revenue generation, the internet allows artists of all forms to steer around the Hollywood-based transnational corporations who, since World War II especially, have been on an aggressive quest to monopolize the arts globally. This has undermined the industry.

Keiser has openly said on the Alex Jones Show that he is going to steer away from exposing the fraud of the banks. He has said that this financial war has been lost. In effect, the financial wealth of the world has been confiscated by elite bankers and their tnc’s, and that the war must now be fought on the cultural front. Thus, he has shifted his focus to copyright law so that a free forum of ideas may remain. So, now he sets his sights to the arts.

And so, “Hollywood cons Congress,” and in the process suffocates civilization’s forum for ideas as fewer and fewer transnational’s own the rights to an increasing amount of the artistic material produced. Through bribery, mergers and other monopolizing efforts, the Hollywood cartel has created a chaotic period across all artistic spheres, and millions of individuals are avoiding the chaos by producing their own material and relying on a more horizontal trading of works as opposed to depending on the top-down supply-line.

Keiser, always inventive, has introduced Pirate My Film, at which you can find Silver Vigilante’s first novel “Town & Country.” Pirate My Film’s Mission Statement very well might sum up the views of Keiser in regards to the free market forum of ideas, and free speech.

It must be made absolutely clear that the copyright monopoly does not extend to what an ordinary person can do with ordinary equipment in their home and spare time; it regulates commercial, intent-to-profit activity only. Specifically, file sharing is always legal.
Free sampling. There must be exceptions that make it legal to create mashups and remixes. Quotation rights, like those that exist for text, must be extended to sound and video.
Digital Restrictions Management should preferably be outlawed, as it is a type of fraud nullifying consumer and citizen rights, but at least, it must always be legal to circumvent

It must be made absolutely clear that the copyright monopoly does not extend to what an ordinary person can do with ordinary equipment in their home and spare time; it regulates commercial, intent-to-profit activity only. Specifically, file sharing is always legal.

Free sampling. There must be exceptions that make it legal to create mashups and remixes. Quotation rights, like those that exist for text, must be extended to sound and video.
Digital Restrictions Management should preferably be outlawed, as it is a type of fraud nullifying consumer and citizen rights, but at least, it must always be legal to circumvent.

The baseline commercial copyright monopoly is shortened to a reasonable five years from publication, extendable to twenty years through registration of the work in a copyright monopoly database.

The public domain must be strengthened.

Net neutrality must be guaranteed.

Levies on blank media are outlawed.

Overall, it must always be clear where the line goes; “the courts will sort it out” areas are not acceptable and tantamount to outlawing.