DRM free for the win!!
Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days
61–70 of 291 posts
Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days
#62Devil's advocate: In the post, he himself says he would've earned more by doing a show for HBO/Comedy Central/other (also note that he mentions, but doesn't factor in the cost of his own time in putting this all together). Given that a lot of people purchased this only to support "the experiment" (i.e. they might not buy the next time he or someone else does this), does this really demonstrate the success of selling…
I completely agree, but don't think most others would spend almost $200k on production.
Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days
#63I'm glad he made some money on it. His mind will be blown when the 'long tail' kicks in (people buying this video 3 years from now, still). He mentions "This [$200,000] 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." Here is the part where this can go off the rails. So the long tail will hit, peopl…
More valuable than the long tail is that he probably has an email list of ~20,000 people -- and more by the hour -- who have demonstrated interest in paying money for Louis C.K. comedy specials. I trust I don't need to tell you what to do with that if you're the exclusive producer of Louis C.K. comedy specials.
He makes it seem like he won't be using that list:
> and they would have owned your private information for their own use.
> You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.
And I think Louis CK is going to be Louis CK's EP from now on.
EDIT: Forgot about the "don't contact me" default on the purchase screen.
Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's bunk. It boils down to saying, "sure, it worked for Louis CK and Radiohead, and Cory Doctorow and Humble Bundle. It worked for Trent Reznor, OK Go, and pretty much everyone funded by Kickstarter... But it could never work for you." This stuff doesn't because it's sprinkled with magic experiment dust. It works because the authors are doing good work, they're able to build a fan base, and they're able to make th…
The reason it works for those specific groups is because of their fan base. Do you think that if Britney Spears tomorrow launched a similar "DRM free pay what you want" sale that and the "viral" element (news articles about how edgy it is) didn't exist she would have the success that these people have? She would outsell all her other releases because "whoa DRM free this is incredible!"? I don't think so, her average…
The reason it works for those specific groups is because of their fan base.
That's exactly the point.
I think you are trying to argue that people outside Loius CK's fanbase bought this because of the desire to prove people wrong. You might be correct in part, but that isn't the whole story.
Do you think that if Britney Spears tomorrow launched a similar "DRM free pay what you want" sale that and the "viral" element (news articles about how edgy it is) didn't exist she would have the success that these people have?
There are plenty of popular artists who have done similar things and had massive success. Lil' Wayne exclusively released (free) mix tapes between 2006 and 2008 which built his profile to the point that his next actual album sold more than a million copies in its first week of release, and gave him his first number 1.
Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days
#65I dislike how it says "if anybody stole it". Piracy isn't stealing, it's copyright infringement.
I'm still curious about the bandwidth costs. 110, 000 people is 110, 000 gigabytes which is 110 Tb of bandwidth. How much does that cost??
Also, since some of the torrenters did indeed pay for the video, they can be included as profit and they didn't add to the bandwidth costs. They were also a small amount, 10k is listed as the number of downloaders on one site. That's 10,000 out of 120,000 people who downloaded using torrents. That's around 8.3% That's really not bad at all and I'm thinking that this is the case for many things. And like I said, some of those people did pay for the video which bumps that percentage down; I would say down to 8% if you're a pessimist, and down to 5% if you're an optimist ;-)
Anyway, piracy isn't a problem here. I hope other people do this because it cuts down on the middlemen who are a constant drain of society.
Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days
#66When Trent Reznor released Niggy Tardust, 28,322 paid $5 for it, which was 20% of the total who downloaded the album freely. Were there any other albums he released for $5? Granted, this was Saul Williams' album and Trent appeared on it; it wasn't a Halo album.
Niggy Tardust was a collaboration wasn't it? A lot of people probably downloaded it to see how good it was. However, $141,000 is still a hefty amount. It would be nice if it were closer to $700,000 but I think it's good enough to live on and to produce the next album or two?
Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days
#67I dislike how it says "if anybody stole it". Piracy isn't stealing, it's copyright infringement. I'm still curious about the bandwidth costs. 110, 000 people is 110, 000 gigabytes which is 110 Tb of bandwidth. How much does that cost?? Also, since some of the torrenters did indeed pay for the video, they can be included as profit and they didn't add to the bandwidth costs. They were also a small amount, 10k is listed…
It's on S3, so rounded up to 200TB (multiple downloads, etc) it's around $15k.
You could distribute it for significantly cheaper than that, but it's still a relatively low portion of revenue.
Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days
#68Devil's advocate: In the post, he himself says he would've earned more by doing a show for HBO/Comedy Central/other (also note that he mentions, but doesn't factor in the cost of his own time in putting this all together). Given that a lot of people purchased this only to support "the experiment" (i.e. they might not buy the next time he or someone else does this), does this really demonstrate the success of selling…
It's been 4 days.
Think George Carlin or Richard Pryor - i.e. watching great old stand-up 20 years later. No royalties - all self-owned.
He could sell for $1 ea and still make more than the flat fee.
Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days
#69Why did it cost $200,000 to produce and host the video? That seems way too expensive. $32,000 on the web site and hosting? Are you kidding me?
Bandwidth shouldn't cost more than $100 per TB. Seems like he got ripped off big time.
Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days
#70I really hope people don't turn this into a "Louis CK did it, so you should publish without DRM!". I agree with the anti-drm sentiment a lot of people hold, but this experiment only worked because it's "rare". Every time something like this is done people use it as evidence of the viability of the idea (Radiohead's pay what you want comes to mind too) and that really shouldn't be done. The only reason I heard about t…
I think a lot of people bought this because they enjoy Louis CK and not because they wanted to experience what downloading a video is like.
The benefit is that he made it easy and cheap. If he went the conventional route I probably wouldn't have watched this special for a year or so until it came out on Netflix (and I've been a big fan for a long time). I don't have cable and it probably would've cost $14.99+ to own from Amazon and maybe $3.99 to rent (for two days). The benefit to what he did was I can buy it now and do what I want with the copy I own.