Trusting customers seems to pay off....

[Soldim]

Interesting experiment that Louis CK did. Many different articles, this one from Time.

The basics:

On Saturday, comedian Louis CK did what was arguably a stupid thing. He made his latest concert video, Live at the Beacon Theater, available for streaming and download at his website for five bucks. The stupid part, depending on your view of human nature, is that he put up a version of the video that had no copy protection—you download it, you can watch it on your computer, burn it to a DVD, do as you wish. In theory, there was nothing preventing you from simply paying five bucks once and burning DVDs for everyone you know, or, more likely, making it available somewhere for people to download for free. Nothing except your theoretical desire not to be a jerk.

He did sell more than one copy






Ah, I guess I should have added a link to his statement.

[garrybuck]

> He did sell more than one copy <

To at least two people!

[ScalyFreak]

DRM free is stupid? I thought it as established that it actually works. Always nice to see someone prove it again though.

[RainingLemur]

I read about this last night and thought it was great.

And I went ahead and bought the video. Just because.

[JSWolf]

I think Louis should sue time for slander.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

DRM free is stupid? I thought it as established that it actually works. Always nice to see someone prove it again though.

Not established well enough to get companies and people with money behind it.

[Ninjalawyer]

Considering the latest Humble Indie Bundle is set to break its last sales record, this isn't all that surprising. The only surprising (sad?) part is that free is still a surprising, out-of-left-field concept.

[afa]

An excellent idea.

I've always enjoyed Louis's stand-ups, and he is to be applauded for trying to take a stand against restrictive digital content.

And yes, the first thing I did after reading his statement was to click the link and buy it.

[afa]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I think Louis should sue time for slander.

No need for that. The author of the article was actually positive about Louis's method.

[abookreader]

I'll pay $5 for that video. I would have never paid $20, which is what he claims it would have been priced if he had allowed a Production Company the rights.

Good for him.

[Ninjalawyer]

Evidently he's grossed $550K in four days and netted $200k.

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestu...our-days.shtml

Originally Posted by techdirt

On to the numbers. I love the fact that Louis didn't just reveal the topline revenue, but walked through the expenses as well:

"First of all, this was a premium video production, shot with six cameras over two performances at the Beacon Theater, which is a high-priced elite Manhattan venue. I directed this video myself and the production of the video cost around $170,000. (This was largely paid for by the tickets bought by the audiences at both shows). The material in the video was developed over months on the road and has never been seen on my show (LOUIE) or on any other special. The risks were thus: every new generation of material I create is my income, it's like a farmer's annual crop. The time and effort on my part was far more than if I'd done it with a big company. If I'd done it with a big company, I would have a guarantee of a sizable fee, as opposed to this way, where I'm actually investing my own money.

The development of the website, which needed to be a very robust, reliable and carefully constructed website, was around $32,000. We worked for a number of weeks poring over the site to make sure every detail would give buyers a simple, optimal and humane experience for buying the video. I edited the video around the clock for the weeks between the show and the launch."

[xg4bx]

he's also looking into selling tickets for his live shows directly and cutting out the middle-man (i.e. ticketmaster). he wants to sell them as reasonably inexpensive as possible. ($20 as opposed to the $40+ that they are after service fees).


he's a very smart man and has a way of cutting to the core and putting arguments in as simple a way as possible but they make absolute sense.

[JeremyR]

Rifftrax does this.

Basically they are the people who were on Mystery Science Theater 3000 when it ended. But they kept at it.

Their price is a little steeper though, $9.99 for their video on demand titles.

[Harper Kingsley]

It's awesome that he did this. Unfortunately, he's just not my kind of funny Still, kudos to him and he's been added to my "Ridiculously Cool List" (Sorry Anderson Cooper)

[rdjack21]

Cool I did not know that he had done this. Just had to go and get a copy for myself.