The internet, downloading, and copyright

johnson1010 · Fri Dec 23, 2011 11:18 am

Ever hear of Louis C.K.?

He’s a hilarious comedian. But don’t check out his stand up if you have no stomach for dick jokes.
Regardless, Louis C.K. decided to give selling his new comedy directly to his customers for a sparse 5 dollars. But Louie is doing it without all the hassle of copy protection.

He sums it up best:


	Quote: Louie: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without “corporate” restrictions. Please bear in mind that I am not a company or a corporation. I’m just some guy. I paid for the production and posting of this video with my own money. I would like to be able to post more material to the fans in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant for me. So, please help me keep this being a good idea. I can’t stop you from torrenting; all I can do is politely ask you to pay your five little dollars, enjoy the video, and let other people find it in the same way.


	Quote: 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.

Since then, his show has gone on to make a lot more money. Here’s his response.


	Quote: hi. So it's been about 12 days since the thing started and yesterday we hit the crazy number. One million dollars. That's a lot of money. Really too much money. I've never had a million dollars all of a sudden. and since we're all sharing this experience and since it's really your money, I wanted to let you know what I'm doing with it. People are paying attention to what's going on with this thing. So I guess I want to set an example of what you can do if you all of a sudden have a million dollars that people just gave to you directly because you told jokes. So I'm breaking the million into four pieces. the first 250k is going to pay back what the special cost to produce and the website to build. The second 250k is going back to my staff and the people who work for me on the special and on my show. I'm giving them a big fat bonus. The third 280k is going to a few different charities. They are listed below in case you'd like to donate to them also. Some of these i learned about through friends, some were reccomended through twitter. • The Fistula Foundation • The Pablove Foundation • charity: water • Kiva • Green Chimneys That leaves me with 220k for myself. Some of that will pay my rent and will care for my childen. The rest I will do terrible, horrible things with and none of that is any of your business. In any case, to me, 220k is enough out of a million. I never viewed money as being "my money" I always saw it as "The money" It's a resource. if it pools up around me then it needs to be flushed back out into the system. The thing is still on sale. I hope folks keep buying it. If I make another million, I'll give more of it away. I'll let you know when that happens because I like you getting to know what happened to your 5 dollars and bringing awareness to the bla bla bla. Okay I really gotta go now. Thank you again. I will now stop bugging you. I really hate being in the news this much so I'm gonna just disappear for a while. Happy hollidays. Louis C.K.

Louie is doing a good thing here.

It brings up questions.

Is it really the case that the internet kills industry, or is it the case that the internet kills the middle man? Why WOULD Louie have to sell digital files to people for $20? He wouldn’t. Not if he’s paying the people who actually had something to do with the production, rather than an infinite chain of corporate coat-tail riders whose only function is to get rich off other people’s hard work.
A game came out a few years back. It had copious amounts of DRM (digital rights management) protection. You could only install the game twice, then it would stop working and you would have to talk with the company and give them an excuse for getting it re-installed on your computer.

There are many reasons why a game might need to be re-installed. Crashed hard drive, new computer, or simply removing it because you don’t play it often, then later re-discovering it. This was a huge hassle. Especially after having paid 60-70 dollars for it.

On the other hand, you could just get the pirated version off the internet which was the exact same game, but minus all the ridiculous DRM restrictions.
In other words, in an effort to stop piracy, they made the product you would buy from them inferior to the pirated version. The answer isn’t to make the thing more expensive and harder to use.

Louie C.K. should be teaching us that.

https://buy.louisck.net/news

Dexter · Fri Dec 23, 2011 11:30 am

Nice, I hope this model is successful.

I didn't care for this quote, it's just bad economics


	Quote: I never viewed money as being "my money" I always saw it as "The money" It's a resource. if it pools up around me then it needs to be flushed back out into the system.

He provided a good, people are willing to pay for it, end of story. He doesn't owe anyone an explanation, if he wants to give some to charity, that's great.

I wonder how many peoples' instincts are to tax the hell out of it, rather than let him earn it and spend it. After all, that puts him well within the 1% in terms of income.

johnson1010 · Fri Dec 23, 2011 12:14 pm

I don't think Louie is necessarily obligated to donate any money either.

But i do respect him like crazy for doing it.

It's an interesting thing, though, isn't it?

Money does equal power. Yet it seems that a truly generous person who would be most likely to spend that money empowering others is quick to be parted of that money.

A truly greedy and selfish person is conversly free to amass wealth, and thus power, indefinitely and become more and more entrenched.

If i suddenly had millions of dollars, i wouldn't sit on it either. I would really try to invest it in something that could help the world, not just my lineage in perpetuity.

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