Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days • Hacker News Board

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#271

Post by moe » Thu, Dec 15, 2011, 4:31 AM UTC

joechip wrote: post #266

nettdata wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that most people don't realize is that a lot of the major record companies are in fact more manufacturing and distribution companies than anything. Here in Canada, EMI produces and delivers, via physical distribution, a huge number of CD's and DVD's. As soon as things "go digital", that goes away. I think that physical channel, more than anything, is what they've been trying to salvage, by staying away from…

I worked for one of the big 5/4/3 music companies and they are actually desperate for physical distribution to go away. Universal Music (the largest music company) sold its CD manufacturing plants a few years ago and all their focus is on digital exploitations. They are looking to the future and that rarely includes people buying CDs in retail stores. I can't stress how desperate they are to take advantage of the hug…

If you have a way for them to make money they will be interested in you, just don't assume they are idiots.

That's a really polite way of saying "They will squeeze the last drop of blood out of you and then some".

You may also want to start thinking about writing software to help them manage [...]

We already have the software. It's called spotify, soundcloud, grooveshark, iTunes etc. The technology to pay the artists a slice of the revenue is in place. Except currently it's mostly used to pay the labels instead.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#272

Post by joechip » Thu, Dec 15, 2011, 5:24 AM UTC

moe wrote: post #271

joechip wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for one of the big 5/4/3 music companies and they are actually desperate for physical distribution to go away. Universal Music (the largest music company) sold its CD manufacturing plants a few years ago and all their focus is on digital exploitations. They are looking to the future and that rarely includes people buying CDs in retail stores. I can't stress how desperate they are to take advantage of the hug…

If you have a way for them to make money they will be interested in you, just don't assume they are idiots. That's a really polite way of saying "They will squeeze the last drop of blood out of you and then some". You may also want to start thinking about writing software to help them manage [...] We already have the software. It's called spotify, soundcloud, grooveshark, iTunes etc. The technology to pay the artists…

That's a really polite way of saying "They will squeeze the last drop of blood out of you and then some".

Very true! However, they do have a lot of cash and very few ideas of how to exploit all their digital assets.

We already have the software. It's called spotify, soundcloud, grooveshark, iTunes etc. The technology to pay the artists a slice of the revenue is in place. Except currently it's mostly used to pay the labels instead.

I didn't mean software for end users, but software for the music companies to use internally to manage their assets. You'll be surprised (or not) to know quite how disjointed and hacked together their internal systems are. Every music company merger results in years of hacks in getting data from one set of archaic systems into another. Of course, the same software could also be used for managing other media, such as film, tv etc - there are small companies that have done very well supplying custom software to entertainment companies e.g http://www.ecteon.com/products-overview

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#273

Post by jonathanwallace » Thu, Dec 15, 2011, 5:33 AM UTC

joechip wrote: post #266

nettdata wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that most people don't realize is that a lot of the major record companies are in fact more manufacturing and distribution companies than anything. Here in Canada, EMI produces and delivers, via physical distribution, a huge number of CD's and DVD's. As soon as things "go digital", that goes away. I think that physical channel, more than anything, is what they've been trying to salvage, by staying away from…

I worked for one of the big 5/4/3 music companies and they are actually desperate for physical distribution to go away. Universal Music (the largest music company) sold its CD manufacturing plants a few years ago and all their focus is on digital exploitations. They are looking to the future and that rarely includes people buying CDs in retail stores. I can't stress how desperate they are to take advantage of the hug…

I worked on software built explicitly to handle this issue, settlement of digital property revenues to channel partners for a startup two years ago.

Nothing came of it. Maybe it was too soon? Maybe the first founder didn't know the right people?

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#274

Post by tonio09 » Thu, Dec 15, 2011, 5:50 AM UTC

I don't think this is a viable strategy in the long run. He managed to make it work for now because of all the media attention and sending it viral on social networking sites. In addition, he puts lots of moralistic pressure on the buyer which may work for him because it fits his comedy style. Also, with this experiment we prove a point to the public that this model can work, so that we, the consumers, can continue to torrent high quality entertainment material for free and not having to pay for it. Yes, it's pure selfishness.

In all other cases for all other "content producers", making it easier for people to torrent your stuff is equal to shooting yourself in the foot. That's the only reason people still pay for stuff like this nowadays anyway: (1) They either haven't got a clue what torrenting means or (2) they're too lazy to do it or (3) they're feeling morally generous.

You can combat (1) by keeping silent about it, (2) by putting as much protection on it as possible, (3) having skill in manipulating masses. Yes, it's manipulation. YOU'RE NOT PAYING 5 DOLLARS FOR THE SHOW, YOU'RE PAYING 5 DOLLARS TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF BEING MORAL.

Thanks but no thanks, I can feel good about myself whenever I want to, I don't need to pay 5 dollars to a dude for it. His show is great by the way but let's face it, it's essentially free.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#275

Post by joechip » Thu, Dec 15, 2011, 6:18 AM UTC

jonathanwallace wrote: post #273

joechip wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for one of the big 5/4/3 music companies and they are actually desperate for physical distribution to go away. Universal Music (the largest music company) sold its CD manufacturing plants a few years ago and all their focus is on digital exploitations. They are looking to the future and that rarely includes people buying CDs in retail stores. I can't stress how desperate they are to take advantage of the hug…

I worked on software built explicitly to handle this issue, settlement of digital property revenues to channel partners for a startup two years ago. Nothing came of it. Maybe it was too soon? Maybe the first founder didn't know the right people?

Maybe the first founder didn't know the right people? Probably.

Music companies are entertainment companies so are still extremely relationship-oriented businesses - far beyond the way conventional businesses are (such as software companies, manufacturers, retailers, etc). To be a top exec at a music company does not necessarily depend on skill or acumen.

Music execs can fail horribly at one company and then effortlessly transition into another great exec job at a competing music company. It's a small world. The music industry has this idea that its very complex and difficult and needs years of experience - but its really not.

If your founder happened to know the right exec in an e-commerce department and was able to show a demo/trial you could have been in with a chance. Anything related to billing software always has a good chance because its easy to make a case how it is generating revenue from day one. That's a difficult thing to do.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#276

Post by piggity » Thu, Dec 15, 2011, 8:21 AM UTC

roguecoder wrote: post #222

miles_matthias wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately there isn't a reliable way to know how many people have pirated it.

It really doesn't matter how many people pirated it, as long as he makes enough money for it to be worth it to him to have made it in the first place. If it was 10 people but 40,000 bought it or a million pirates and 40,000 consumers, it's all the same to him.

I tried to download it using my 3 free downloads - failed miserably (got about 10k/s for the first 100MB).

So I'll be one of those leeches shortly...

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#277

Post by marcamillion » Thu, Dec 15, 2011, 11:05 AM UTC

Louis, welcome to the meta-data effect.

Would love to hear how the releasing of this info has further affected sales. Based on the upvotes here, I wouldn't be surprised if it doubled them again.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#278

Post by gte910h » Thu, Dec 15, 2011, 1:29 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #13

I 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…

You know what happens if you publish WITH drm?

Actual buyers of the content have issues getting to it, and people who want to pirate easily find it online and download it after some random dude removes the DRM.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#279

Post by gte910h » Thu, Dec 15, 2011, 1:32 PM UTC

sunchild wrote: post #259

bgentry wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 reasons the plaintext password is OK in this situation: 1) They generate the password for you, how else are they supposed to get it to you? 2) Just because they email it to you in plaintext does not mean they are storing it in plaintext (they could easily send the email at the time the password is generated) 3) You won't reuse this password on other sites because you didn't choose it. The primary reason why it's ba…

The correct way to handle this is to email an authenticated link that prompts password setting on the store.

That's A way. For a virtually costless good, this is just as fine a way that has a much smaller chance of capturing a password anyone gives a shit about

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#280

Post by gte910h » Thu, Dec 15, 2011, 1:34 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #261

vidarh wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is he considers receiving and having to rip and/or store the disk as an additional cost on top of the $15. It widens the gap between the $5 download and the $15 disk further because he has more hassle to get the same functionality.

The point is that he's gilding the lily. He doesn't have to store the physical artifact in perpetuity, he can format shift it and make it like his $5 purchase. Sure, it's more work for him, and makes the effective cost more than $5. But he's not forced to store the physical artifact forever.

No, I can't rip a physical disk without considerable effort and learning and trial and error. I have one machine with an optical drive, and no ripping program I know how to use to rip a DVD.

You think because you can format shift something everyone else has the time, inclination, hardware and software to do so.