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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."
Louis CK said in an NPR interview earlier this week:
I've noticed this attitude as well. It's really, really annoying.
When you give consumers a product that they want, at a price they find fair, in a form factor (format) that is convenient for them, in a location that is convenient for them, they are happy to pay for it!
Every time an artist does something like this, it pays off greatly. Think Humble Indy Bundle. Yet all the major publishers claim they'd be bankrupted? Pirates gonna pirate. Haters gonna hate. Don't screw over your legitimate users with malware!
Louis CK's experiment is proof that you don't need DRM to make a profit and, a decent amount at that. Good for him! It is nice to see someone with behaving rationally!
Hooray, vindication, do more of this, etc. But my question is: Where did those ~$300,000 dollars go? Does it really take that much overhead to successfully sell media content the way we've all been asking for for years?
It's trying to continue to make money off it for the next 50 years, which the RIAA/MPAA are trying to do.
Good effort, though.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I think this demonstrates something that I've believed in for years. When doing business, sometimes it's wise to leave a bit on the table. You won't be maximizing profit or getting the absolute best deal that you could have, but the goodwill earned can be priceless and can pay off in ways you can't envision.
Back in the days of Shareware there was a similar attitude from people who actually paid the software author. Part of that was encouraged by the authors, they would list people that had purchased their program or thank them personally. The big difference today is the people who created the stuff that is being "shared" via torrent are usually so distantly removed from the purchase that they don't realize or care that some geek bought their CD or DVD. So there is no longer a recognition from the creator of the work (Bono emails the guys....."Thanks for buying my CD!"), which means the purchaser (former thief) doesn't get any thanks or acknowledgement from the artist and instead must toot his/her own horn.
That's why I like buying product directly from the artist whenever possible, via their website or even at a live show (yes, many artists sell CD's and other merchandise after their shows). I plan on sending Louis CK $5 even if I only watch his video once, mainly because I think it's a great idea and I want other artists to try the same thing (plus he's funny as hell).
John
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
I find it amusing that the link itself and the link the site refers to, both say the opposite things. The article basically has him saying he dosn't think any if many people stole it at all, the article he links to says at least 500 people stole it. Now what would be more fair to say would be that the piracy is the same or less then if the video had the DRM, and that the piracy did not appear to have reduced sales at all.
There were people in NYC getting like 750 kbps download. Ain't no way you'd see that when torrenting.. or even using megavideo's paid version. Very much : Want. Click. Have.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
The Humble Bundle is a great example of what people will do when they have the option of either getting something for nothing, or getting that same thing and paying for it when they know their money goes somewhere besides a publishing exec's pocket.
Back when allofmp3 was still alive and well, I bought hundreds of dollars of music from them. Even a lot of stuff that I already owned on CD since it was much more convenient to download the album than to find a good ripping program and to sit around and load CD's.
After I lost the ability to add funds to my allofmp3 account, I pretty much stopped buying music at all, except the very occasional MP3 album. At $2.00/album I'm willing to buy lots of music, even bands I don't know well. At $10/album, I'm much more selective to the point of almost never purchasing.
Not to mention the fact that I already have a few hundred albums of music I like, so I don't really feel a strong urge to purchase more. The more music I own, the less I'm willing to spend on new music. If I have only 2 albums, I might be willing to spend $20 on a new one just to get variety. But if I have 200 albums I don't add much variety to my collection by buying something new, so I might want to pay only $5 for a new album unless it's some artist I really like.
The article itself actually has a link referencing that, as usual the brilliant editing of TFS implies things incorrectly.
He also did a related Ask Me Anything on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/n9tef/hi_im_louis_ck_and_this_is_a_thing/
oh wait, he did. http://www.jonathancoulton.com/
How many others I wonder?
more cowbell
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/
I think it's great, personally. He's getting $5 from me. It's a fair price, and he's a funny guy.
"Lame" - Galaxar
LCK says he doesn't get torrents, but I think he does, this is very smart. Many people who watch the torrent version will gladly hop over to his site and pay their $5 and not even bother to d/l again. Movies should be like this, what if you could pay on the way out of the theater after you've seen the movie, wouldn't that make alot more sense?
You know it'll never happen, but it's a nice idea
=D
What! Do I look like a people person?
Louis C.K. is real big on that. He claims, and his shows seem to back up, that he tosses his old jokes each year and moves on to new ones. He doesn't keep doing the same material over and over. Means that if he releases a new special, well there is probably a reason to watch it.
But the only method is to use paypal.
I had to change my email to get rid of those cretins.
The level of their malevolence I leave to others to describe.
Too bad, I wanted to reward Louis for his efforts.
I've not made a few other purchases for the same paypal reasons.
No brain, no pain.
How the F%$^# did it come to $300k in COSTS ??? It was a paid for show ??? ie. 2500 people paid to see him as well ($20/ticket I would guess puts that at $50k already just to put the show on, surely his costs were covered before any money came in from the video....)
With the pressure on personal time that society puts on us these days, convenience is a far bigger factor to a lot of consumers. Its far easier, and more enjoyable to download a TV show and watch it than it is to watch it live, enduring the endless ads (now about 15min out of every hour), or fast forward through the ads when you PvR it, etc. I can download something in a few mins in many cases and to top it all off, the presentation of the narrative is far better when not interrupted by endless ads for shit I am never going to buy. The media companies just don't realize they are outdated in their current format. They want all the revenue NOW, and they simply aren't going to get what they could squeeze out of we the consumer in the past, but if they change their model they might get more out of a larger pool of consumers who will buy their products at a lower price point.
I have never pirated a game in my life. If I like it enough to want to play it, I pay for it and always have. I don't download music either.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
This is great to further spread the idea of direct distribution, but I'm still more impressed with Pioneer One which is accomplishing more with much less and using a creative commons license. http://www.pioneerone.tv/
Why not do as Louis does? Cut out the useless middleman and link directly to his statement.
$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.
I figure we're 20 years away from the MAFIAA starting to catch onto this little secret.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff. His comedy is fresh and brutally honest and he took a fairly large risk producing and distributing this himself. This is what the commercial Internet was supposed to turn out when we used to dream of its potential back in those heady days of the early 90s.
He's earned my $5. I will probably do it again next time. Hopefully other entertainers recognize and follow suit.
I especially appreciate that he doesn't require the shipping address on the transaction. Totally unnecessary for a digital purchase - especially when paypal has verified my card matches my address for them.
It's what is stopping me from purchasing Oil Rush. You guys listening!?!
If he was funny, imagine how much money he could have made.
Why Microsoft used to be huge? Illegal and morally questionable business practices.
Fixed that for ya.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Started as some guys making Halo videos for fun. Then they made a series. Initially, they made it at nights and on the weekends, when they weren't doing other things. Now it is their fulltime job. They make their money on DVDs, subscriptions, and merchandise.
I'm not saying everyone can make it big. What I'm saying is you can do it without going the "mainstream" route.
What it mostly takes is some talent and originality. The thing I find with most struggling artists is they aren't very good. I've heard more than a few local bands and they all completely fail to impress. While big media has certainly made some no-talent acts huge, these people are fooling only themselves when they claim that they have all the talent needed it is just for lack of luck that they aren't going anywhere.
Also nobody said that it won't be hard work. Any self venture usually is. Ask any small business.
He says he hasn't made as much yet. Here's the thing:
With a produced special, it is all front loaded. the production company pays you a fee, quite a good one, right up front for the special. After that, you probably never see any money again from it.
This is all long tail kind of stuff. Initially he was in the hole for all the production costs. However he gets all the money from every sale less hosting fees and Paypal fees (less than 10% total). So the longer it goes on, the more he makes.
Ok well it has been going for 4 days. How about we see in a year how it looks? I'm sure a lot of sales will be right away, as they often are, but more will continue. In particular I expect another surge what with the reporting. I didn't know he was doing this until the /. story. Now he has $5 from me.
So let's not go on the less money thing yet. See how that pans out in the long run.
I bought the video because artist and content providers need to learn that there are positive results for trusting that the majority of persons are reasonable and honest. Providing the content at a reasonable price and unfettered by DRM need to be rewarded with our support. There are a number of artist that I would love to have in my collection but refuse to purchase because of the outrageous price of the album or DVD and the fact that the company selling them is the likes of Sony. The only way to fix them is to refuse to purchase from them. There are allot of artist out there that if they had a website that I could send them money out of the chain of the label I would. I would then torrent their music comfortable knowing that they made more money from me directly compensating them than if I were to purchase their album through the normal channels.
Overall it was fairly cheap since he did a good bit of it himself. So in terms of costs here are some of the big ones:
1) Renting the hall. Now I suppose you can argue that is paid for by the people who came to see the how, but still, a nice hall costs money to rent. That includes not only the use of the space but usually a crew too for handling all the things like setting up the set and all that jazz.
2) Hiring the camera crew. It was shot on 6 cameras by professionals. That doesn't come cheap. You are renting the equipment and of course their time. It isn't just 6 guys either, there was at least a directory of photography as well, and probably some assistants since setting up all that gear is a lot of work.
3) The sound. Someone had to run the sound for the show, and record it as well. At least one professional engineer is needed to do that well, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were two (one concentrating on the live mix, one on the recording). That of course also demands mics, mixers, and all that jazz.
Also it wasn't done in one shot, it was two nights. That is pretty normal, you want to make sure that you have options for the jokes in case they weren't told well (or got a bad reaction) on one night.
Now think about the pay all those people might want, and the cost for that equipment (which the rental fees come from). See how that can add up?
I won't take it for free.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
2000 INR is about 37 USD
Food and drink (buying my own and cooking/eating at home) would be about 50 USD a week, or about 222 USD a month
so the cost of living adjustment would be about x6 after the exchange rate
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I doubt that a lack of e-readers was the driving issue. I think it was King's attitude and that hardly anyone wants to invest in an incomplete story (you'll never know if the rest of the chapters will come until they're published).
As for how to address the public, I think Richard Stallman got it right back in 2001 when he was giving a talk at MIT and someone in the audience asked him a question about Stephen King's experiment:
QUESTION: [A comment and and question about free downloading and about Stephen King's attempt to market one of his novels serially over the web.]
STALLMAN: Yes, it's interesting to know what he did and what happened. When I first heard about that, I was elated. I thought, maybe he was taking a step towards a world that is not based on trying to maintain an iron grip on the public. Then I saw that he had actually written to ask people to pay. To explain what he did, he was publishing a novel as a serial, by installments, and he said, âoeIf I get enough money, I'll release more.â But the request he wrote was hardly a request. It brow-beat the reader. It said, âoeIf you don't pay, then you're evil. And if there are too many of you who are evil, then I'm just going to stop writing this.â
Well, clearly, that's not the way to make the public feel like sending you money. You've got to make them love you, not fear you.
SPEAKER: The details were that he required a certain percentage â" I don't know the exact percentage, around 90% sounds correct â" of people to send a certain amount of money, which, I believe, was a dollar or two dollars, or somewhere in that order of magnitude. You had to type in your name and your e-mail address and some other information to get to download it and if that percentage of people was not reached after the first chapter, he said that he would not release another chapter. It was very antagonistic to the public downloading it.
So, with Louis C.K.'s recording, the illicit downloads didn't stop him from making a profit of $200,000 which is slightly less than he spent on the endeavor ("The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website."). I see no indication Louis C.K. is going after the infringers legally, another huge difference between dealing with him directly and buying through some media multinational. It's not even clear how many of the infringers paid anyway, nor is it clear how many of the infringers would not have paid no matter the price. Stephen King, on the other hand, browbeat the readers into attempted compliance and failed to convince enough people to keep King happy. The story ended quickly and I don't see King trying this again with a more reasonable attitude.
Digital Citizen
So how is that different from the people who will only see if "at a friend's house" or some such? Surely even in the days before the Internet there would be some percentage of "sales lost" due to being able to see / experience the product without paying for it-- and yet, in a LEGAL manner.
Sure there are also people who would take or steal it too just because they can-- but there are multiple ways that the product can be LEGALLY used without paying for it.
Isn't that that what the producer does?
FRA: STFU GTFO
Reasonable price is subject to permanent change. And not just on demand/offer, but something else too: customer base.
1. A couple of decades ago an hour of entertainment was selling quite nice for 30-50$ or more.
2. Now some people consider 0.99$ for an hour to be fair game.
3. In 20 years, most Chinese and Indians will get Internet access (after shelter, food, electricity and computers). When your potential audience is 10 billion and there are decent distribution networks I bet your ass it will be lucrative to sell an hour of good entertainment for even as low as 0.01$.
Actual numbers don't matter, you get the point :)
With time, even if people have more and more money the price is dropping. I believe "reasonable price" has nothing to do with pirates or why they pirate. A lower price may sell more units, indeed, but not because people pirate less.
My strategy is to have no DRM, but I do need a way to incentivise good behavior in the official servers (hacking's fine, but do it on your own server -- spreading viruses via mods is a no-no too). So a valid code to play online will be required (to get a handle on our bandwith costs), but offline play requires no check. We'll tie your online code to an email address, so you can retrieve it if you forgot (and reDL), or transfer the game & code to someone else via changing the registered email address (for gifts, resale, etc).
By default, the software will auto-log you in when you try to join an official server (not spying, just for convenience; You can turn it off & go manual). You can have as many copies installed as you like, but only one active online session will be allowed on the official servers (join a private one if you want unlimited instead -- It's not our bandwidth).
We'll have the capability to invalidate license codes, but only do so at your request or extreme abuse (hundred+ logins from all over the globe -- we'll email you the new code & deactivate the old one). This way, if the code get's stolen, or accidentally winds up out of your control you can get the game back.
Now copyright infringement is supposed to be free marketing... So, since, in this instance, we can somewhat detect the default scenario (lots of folks trying to log in with the same code) I've been thinking that that in turn for their free advertising efforts we could give alleged infringers an unlockable item -- a pirate's eye patch or a monocle (a $70 value!*).
If what many say is true: that people will pay if the price is right; Then, what about if the free advertising is incentivized? I'm betting it would have little to no effect on actual sales either way; However, without a proper control group, experiments like this are hard to prove reliable.
The real question is: Would most people commit copyright infringement for free in-game swag? Actually, The real question is: If we give so little of a damn about copyright that you're even considering the previous question, and content producers (like myself) are making games of the act itself, WTF are we doing with such draconian copyright laws? It's still, "We the people," right?
* no we don't actually plan to sell trivial DLC for those prices, it's an EoL reference (no, the game, not the control code (no, the mind-mastery-message, not TTY escape) ).
No conclusions can be gained from this "experiment" because there is no control. No one knows nor can tell how much would have been made if it the show in question was released for $5.00 and contained DRM. Any conclusion that this release was as/more successful than a DRMed release are not supported.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.