Louis C.K. self distribution experiment is a success

By Syanide
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Grand Master

Syanide

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A Statement from Louis C.K.

People of Earth (minus the ones who don't give a **** about this): it's been amazing to conduct this experiment with you. The experiment was: if I put out a brand new standup special at a drastically low price ($5) and make it as easy as possible to buy, download and enjoy, free of any restrictions, will everyone just go and steal it? Will they pay for it? And how much money can be made by an individual in this manner?

It's been 4 days. A lot of people are asking me how it's going. I've been hesitant to share the actual figures, because there's power in exclusive ownership of information. What I didn't expect when I started this was that people would not only take part in this experiment, they would be invested in it and it would be important to them. It's been amazing to see people in large numbers advocating this idea. So I think it's only fair that you get to know the results. Also, it's just really cool and fun and I'm dying to tell everybody. I told my Mom, I told three friends, and that wasn't nearly enough. So here it is.

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.

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. As of Today, we've sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.

I really hope people keep buying it a lot, so I can have ****loads of money, but at this point I think we can safely say that the experiment really worked. If anybody stole it, it wasn't many of you. Pretty much everybody bought it. And so now we all get to know that about people and stuff. I'm really glad I put this out here this way and I'll certainly do it again. If the trend continues with sales on this video, my goal is that i can reach the point where when I sell anything, be it videos, CDs or tickets to my tours, I'll do it here and I'll continue to follow the model of keeping my price as far down as possible, not overmarketing to you, keeping as few people between you and me as possible in the transaction.

Read more at Louis C.K.'s website

Purchase Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon Theater

Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

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This distribution model has been successful before - just ask Radiohead, who sold their last two albums directly via their website. I would love to see more artists selling their works this way.

Grand Master

Bubbabyte

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Never heard of him or recall any mention of this being done, but I do support the idea and will now go and buy it. I'm always interested in comedians I have never heard of before

seriously? You've never heard of louis ck? You are truly missing out man.. without a doubt the funniest stand up comedian of this era, and one of the best ever. I purchased the special within the first 30 minutes of it going up for sale and it was worth every bit of the $5. I wish more people would go this route.

Grand Master

Syanide

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Never heard of him or recall any mention of this being done, but I do support the idea and will now go and buy it. I'm always interested in comedians I have never heard of before

Personally, I find him to be one of the best stand up comedians today. His TV show Louie is also amazing. All depends on the taste and the type of humor, but $5 is really not that much to risk.

Mentor

Ently

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The more experiments we see like this the closer we move towards cutting out the now pointless "middle man" between artists and consumers. The Internet can effectively replace record labels/distribution companies and in the end we all win.

Veteran

Stetson

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$32k for his website? Whatever he says about 'carefully constructed' - he got massively ripped off.

Probably took someone half an hour to create that crap.

I would imagine that the cost was due to being able to serve a large volume of HD video downloads/streams.

Grand Master

giantpotato

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There's nothing wrong with distribution companies as long as they provide a useful service. Take games for example, would you rather have to download games from dozens of different websites, or have one central location (Steam) to download/manage everything, and know if you ever wanted to re-download in the future you have a purchase history and everything tied to your account?

If music/video was completely decentralized you can bet nobody would agree on a common format.

Veteran

Stetson

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There's nothing wrong with distribution companies as long as they provide a useful service. Take games for example, would you rather have to download games from dozens of different websites, or have one central location (Steam) to download/manage everything, and know if you ever wanted to re-download in the future you have a purchase history and everything tied to your account?

If music/video was completely decentralized you can bet nobody would agree on a common format.

In the current music industry there are actually two distribution layers. The service you describe is provided by services like iTunes or the Amazon MP3 store.

Grand Master

spacer

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A buddy of mine heard about this and bought the video (and he never buys anything...). He brought it over to my house, and a bunch of us watched it without issue. It was hysterical too. I'm glad this is working out for Louis.

I had only heard about Louis C.K. from his TV show on FX, and I thought it was terrible. But his stand up is great. I definitely recommend it.

I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58).

Hah, so true.

Grand Master

+LogicalApex MVC

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$32k for his website? Whatever he says about 'carefully constructed' - he got massively ripped off.

Probably took someone half an hour to create that crap.

It might come as a shock, but programmers that actually know what they are doing cost money.

Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

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Already downloaded to my laptop (have a sweet T1 connection at work). As I said he 110% deserves the support IMO, so glad to be one of the people to legitimately purchase it.

Grand Master

shakey

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I bought this for myself Saturday when I saw on Reddit that he had posted it up for sale. After watching it. I purchased it for a few friends and emailed them the details as a early christmas present. Great deal, Great comedian.

Veteran

Stetson

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I'm not a web designer, but I could have built that website for him for free.

How much for hosting to handle 100,000 people downloading an HD hour long video? I doubt he paid $32k just for the HTML/CSS/scripting.

And don't forget ongoing support, this is a website and distribution system that has to stay up and be reliable for users who have paid money and expect to be able to get what they paid for. A tech dedicated to monitoring and keeping the site running and being on hand full time in case any glitches occur probably isn't cheap.

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