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

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

#171

Post by icebraining »

cookiecaper wrote: post #126
rkudeshi wrote: post #36

Devil'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 that the circumstances of this business model work for Louis CK, but not necessarily others following in his footsteps. I fully agree with this. If you have your own cable TV show, you can make a lot of money by selling your wares independently online. The platform is a lot different for those of us that can't start an AMA on Reddit and have it shoot up to 10,000 comments in a few hours. This mentality is remi…

Yes, but if you're unknown, you won't be able to get the same contract he could with a large company neither. It may still be worth it.

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

#172

Post by zandor »

chippy wrote: post #150
hooande wrote: post #84

Is it just me, or is Louie sounding more and more like a part of the hn/reddit crowd? He went from "I don't know what this 'torrent' thing is" (implied: "I'm not a nerd or anything") to being excited about online distribution and avoiding DRM. I've been a fan of his for some time and this seems unlike him. I think it's pretty cool to see someone's geeky side being exposed publicly.

I am also cynical - I suspect it's clever marketing. Targeted.

And that might be the case. But the guy has been around the business for a while. His mother was a software engineer and grew up learning to fix things according to interviews. I mean he writes, directs, edits, produces his own TV series, uses RED cameras and then does this, so I'm inclined to believe that it's not all for show.

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

#173

Post by SODaniel »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #37

I'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…

This is so true; and so well deserved! I'm 'guesstimating' wildly, but would not be surprised if the end revenue for 12 months hit $3.5+ million for this 'project'.

Again: Well deserved and I for one feel like I got $100 worth of awesome, for a bargain price!

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

#174

Post by SODaniel »

rplnt wrote: post #160
kahawe wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for showing that you don't need a label, you mean: for showing that Louis CK doesn't need a label.

Also, another guy doing this won't get that much attention as it won't be so new.

Though since Trent Reznor, Smashing Pumpkins etc. have used the same model for 4-5 years now I wouldn't exactly say that Louis CK was 'first'.

Of course, he's sort of a 'pet project' and lovechild of Reddit etc. But I'm pretty sure that there are many comedians, film makers, musicians etc. that would be happy to make 1/5th of 'traditional revenue' and keep 80% instead of the 5% they keep being signed to a major label.

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

#175

Post by Jgrubb »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #132
steve-howard wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire M.O. of the modern music industry is to shatter our preconceptions of just how short-sighted somebody can possibly be.

This is because the modern music industry honestly believes that it is going to go the way of a dodo. When you think that your sources of revenue are dying, it makes sense to try and extract as much as you can from them on the short term, despite the damage it does to them long term. Of course, this makes the prediction self-reinforcing.

I would actually counter that it's not the music industry that believes it's going the way of the dodo. I'm in the music industry. Have been for almost 15 years now and have never worried for one second about my career. I'm a musician though.

The people who are rightly worrying that their jobs are in peril are the suits (though often dressed in Tshirts and ballcaps) who bring less and less value in an age where experiments like Louis C.K.'s are a widely publicized and self-produced success. Disruption at it's finest and most liberating.

You're basically right, I just want to reinforce that there are lots of us modern music industry types who couldn't be happier about "the situation".

As a side note, I wonder how someone could plot the frequency of usage of auto-tune in the studio with record sales.

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

#176

Post by SODaniel »

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 do realize that the revenue that a comedian/Musician take home from a major label contract averages somewhere between 4-9% of total right?

If Louis CK would have really just sold the rights to comedy central, HBO etc. He could have 'pocketed' an after tax revenue of maybe $100k, with little post-air revenue.

When everything is said and done I am willing to bet my beard that this 'experiment' will net him at least $2 million more then a traditional contract.

Of course the 'pet project factor' and his timing played in, but seriously; He was NOT first!

Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing etc. have been doing this for years and continue to acknowledge the viability of the self publish model over traditional labels.

TLDR; This is not a fad, this is not a 'one off thing'. If you make something worth paying for, people will pay for it.

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

#177

Post by SODaniel »

po wrote: post #19

I think by releasing the sales figures he actually runs the risk of decreasing sales. I think there is probably a segment of the population that would feel bad about not paying for the video but now that he announced how much money he made their guilt over stealing from a poor artist will subside. It's a bit hard to keep people sympathetic if you've announced that you just made a nice profit. I'm sure at this point h…

On Caucasian please!

Why would any significant part of the audience somehow not purchase the show knowing that he may actually make a decent amount of money from the sales?

I for one am perfectly happy chipping in my $5 towards the CK family beach house. At least I know my money is going to someone that seems to be working his ass off entertaining his fans and not some nameless label that play artist and entertainers like pawns for the profit of their share holders.

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

#178

Post by GFischer »

Corrado wrote: post #165

I have said for the past 10 years or so that I would gladly pay a small fee directly to an entertainer instead of having them get an even smaller fee from a middle-man. For example, torrent the latest Rush album + give the band $5 directly = everyone (who matters) is happy. I have the satisfaction of supporting my favorite artist and Rush has quite a few more $$$s directly in their pocket. All we have to do if find a…

I started out with that idea (adding a "contribute to me" button), and tried to validate it.

It turns out that the people I approached weren't interested in a service to accept contributions if said service had significant fees, and I couldn't find a way to make those cheaper (moving money has a significant cost) and couldn't compete with Paypal Donate.

I still believe there's a market for it (you're an example :) ), but it's going to be tough to convince the content owners.

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