Louis CK's Internet Experiment Pays Off

redletterdave writes "Comedian Louis C.K., real name Louis Szekely, took a major risk by openly selling his latest stand-up special, 'Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon Theater,' for only $5 on his website and refusing to put any DRM restrictions on the video, which made it easily susceptible to pirating and torrenting. Four days later, Louis CK's goodwill experiment has already paid off: The 44-year-old comic now reports making a profit of about $200,000, after banking more than $500,000 in revenue from the online-only sale. The special, which has sold 110,000 copies so far, is only available on Louis CK's website."

Link to the purchase page

[Crudely_Indecent]

I found it odd that TFA didn't mention the site, or where one can go to get this fine drm-free video.

https://buy.louisck.net/ [louisck.net]

I think it's great, personally. He's getting $5 from me. It's a fair price, and he's a funny guy.

Re:Pirate attitude

[gweihir]

It is. Except for those that want to tell others what to think and how to live. Typically found in the religious extremist corner, but the copyright industry also makes efforts in that direction. Even the term "pirate" is intellectually dishonest in the extreme.

Re:Pirate attitude

[kyrio]

Yet the Humble Bundle, recent NIN albums and this thing from Louis CK somehow make sales. I have purchased many thousands of dollars worth of media over the years and I've downloaded at least a million dollars "worth" more. If I had millions of dollars, I'd have bought it all instead of downloading it for free. This is, of course, ignoring that the huge majority of media that I've downloaded can not be purchased in my country, or through any other means.

Re:I'm shocked!

[mistiry]

I'll gladly pay if I know it's actually supporting the artist. But what I WON'T do is pay mony that I know will go towards suing their fans. Or pay the same price as a physical CD for an online download. Or pay $20 for a five track EP.

Agreed. Why should I give my hard earned money to a label, that honestly serves less and less of a purpose every day, who in turn leaves a pittance to the actual artist.

Of course, how many bands/singers that are signed by these labels are truly 'artists' anymore? I wouldn't define an artist as someone who sings songs written by someone else to music composed and played by someone else, all through auto-tune.

Now, a band like MAYDAY, or an indy musician like Dan Bull [itsdanbull.com], those are true artists, and deserve to be compensated accordingly.

As for the last part of your comment - you are spot on. Digital media should be cheaper than physical media, and a five-track 'album' is just another ploy by the label to get more money out of the fans.

Direct link

[slasho81]

Why not do as Louis does? Cut out the useless middleman and link directly to his statement [louisck.net].

I bought it.

[Beelzebud]

$5.00 for an h264 720p non-DRM video, an mp4 standard definition file with no-DRM, and the option to stream it over the internet two times. It was a great deal, and I thought it deserved support. The fact that I got 2 copies of the show, that I can use on whatever device I choose, is great.

Re:Pirate attitude

[Anonymous Coward]

basically, though a lot of people are willing to pay for something out of goodwill, there'll always be arseholes that have no good will and will take anything they can because they can.

people steal from charity shops you know... even though the prices are insanely low and the store itself is not for profit, and in many cases the store is affiliated with a charity that will give the same items to poor people, some cunt will actually take stuff for free.

arseholes are why we can't have nice things.

Let's stop calling these people by body parts ("arsehole", "cunt") and use the appropriate label:

Sociopath [amazon.com]

Sociopaths are, literally, the source of all the evil in the world.
The sooner everybody knows what they are, the sooner we can build a machine to identify them.
The sooner we can build a machine to identify them, the sooner we can quarantine them.

Re:Pirate attitude

[Thiez]

> Sociopaths are, literally, the source of all the evil in the world.

[Citation needed]. Sociopathy is now seen as a subset of antisocial personality disorder. According to wikipedia,
  "A 2002 literature review of studies on mental disorders in prisoners stated that 47% of male prisoners and 21% of female prisoners had anti-social personality disorder."
Even assuming all of the prisoners with that disorder did belong to the sociopath-subset, this still means 53% of male prisoners and 79% of female prisoners are *not* sociopaths, while (depending on their crimes) they can still be seen as a source of 'evil'.

It's very tempting to call 'bad' people names to distance yourself from them, fact remains that most of us are capable of terrible things under the right circumstances. While denying this may make you feel better about yourself, you're just sticking your head in the sand.

If you're interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_disengagement [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility [wikipedia.org]