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Aziz Ansari releases DRM-free standup special for $5

azizansari.com

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Re: Aziz Ansari releases DRM-free standup special for $5

#2

Post by rkudeshi »

I know Louis CK was successful in this model, but at the time I expressed hesitation about others following his lead.

He made a good amount of money, but given Louis CK is probably the most popular working comedian today, it didn't seem like ENOUGH money to justify the entire business model (assuming no one else would make as much doing the same).

But now Aziz Ansari is doing it. Jim Gaffigan has announced plans to do so as well.

I know we'll have to wait for their numbers to come in to find out if Louis CK was a fluke or a trend, but I'm really hoping I was wrong and it's the latter.

If this is the future of selling online content, sign me up.

Re: Aziz Ansari releases DRM-free standup special for $5

#6

Post by garrydanger »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #3

Some startup needs to aggregate, give cloud storage, and iPad/roku/boxee apps for these things.

I really like this new model but it got me thinking about how hard it's going to be for Aziz to push his content to different types of media. Traditionally the labels would handle that (usually incompetently) but for a startup to focus on this niche would be awesome.

Re: Aziz Ansari releases DRM-free standup special for $5

#7

Post by untog »

It's interesting that all this has come from comedians. Perhaps not surprising, given that TV shows are owned by networks, and bands are largely indebted to record labels- I never thought about it before, but a comedian is far more of a "free agent" than anyone else- for instance, Aziz is one of the main stars in a hit NBC comedy (well, as much of a hit as NBC gets these days), but he's free to do stuff like this as much as he wants. I very much doubt a band would be able to get away with that.

I've been a fan of Aziz for a long time- I'll be buying.

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