Louis CK started selling his latest show on a website four days ago for $5. As of yesterday, he’s made $200K on the deal. He financed production costs via ticket sales, and the download is a DRM-free high definition video that you can watch on your computer or burn to a DVD without restrictions. The website is, in Louis’ words, “simple, optimal and humane experience”. For example, it asks you if you want to join his mailing list, and the default choice is to opt-out, not opt-in. In other words, he did everything that large commercial media doesn’t do, yet he was successful. His latest write-up on his experiment is well worth reading.
I really hope people keep buying it a lot, so I can have shitloads of money, but at this point I think we can safely say that the experiment really worked. If anybody stole it, it wasn’t many of you. Pretty much everybody bought it. And so now we all get to know that about people and stuff. I’m really glad I put this out here this way and I’ll certainly do it again. If the trend continues with sales on this video, my goal is that i can reach the point where when I sell anything, be it videos, CDs or tickets to my tours, I’ll do it here and I’ll continue to follow the model of keeping my price as far down as possible, not overmarketing to you, keeping as few people between you and me as possible in the transaction.
(Of course i reserve the right to go back on all of this and sign a massive deal with a company that pays me fat coin and charges you straight up the ass.). (This is you: yes Louie. And we’ll all enjoy torrenting that content. You fat sweaty dolt).
Louis was also on Fresh Air last night, where he says he “cried like a little bitch”, so it’s probably worth hearing.
Schlemizel
please define “successful”. Sure, he made a little money but think how much more potential he had if only he was willing to screw over his fans. Then there would be the entertainment value of tracking down violators and dragging them into court. Obviously he does not understand the upside of being an asshole – is he some kind of so cial ist?
4tehlulz
ZOMG TORRENTZ PLZ
Brad
Louis CK did an ask me thread at reddit a couple days ago where he talks a lot about this experience and other TV biz/random topics. His answers a good read.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/n9tef/hi_im_louis_ck_and_this_is_a_thing/c37gei3
geg6
I totally support this sort of marketing for artists. I’d support it by buying it, but I really am not a fan of Louis CK. I only find him mildly funny in a “comic only men really love” kind of way. Comes off like a big jerk to me, though I get why so many men like him.
If someone I loved would pick up on this, I’d go for it in a minute. I have pretty much stopped buying any sort of content (music, film, whatever…) in favor of streaming radio and Netflix and other such things. The only exception is books. I still love me some print and leather books. I have The Warmth of Other Suns sitting on my end table and I am dying to pick it up and start it right now. But I am delaying gratification until my winter break starts this weekend. It is my personal gift to myself.
ETA the link for the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Warmth-Other-Suns-Americas-Migration/dp/0679444327
RRoss
Narrow appeal, narrow risk. He is basically busking.
This is how the ‘information wants to be free’ crowd would treat any artist if the they the chance: somewhere to dump loose change/used gum.
Gromit
I have to reluctantly agree with @RRoss above.
I think it’s awesome what he’s doing, but Louis CK has a strong fan base and a reputation for mastery of his craft. Without that level of loyalty, I’m skeptical that this model will succeed. I want it to, but it strikes me as a little like using The Grateful Dead as a model for how bands can succeed in a world of bootleggers.
some other guy
“Without that level of loyalty, I’m skeptical that this model will succeed.”
To me this seems like a feature, not a bug.
I guess don’t see a problem with a world where talented artists who manage to build a loyal fanbase can make a decent living without paying hundreds of corporate middlemen who contribute little to nothing to the actual process.
Especially if the trade-off is that disposable pop acts who rely on expensive studio wizardry and multimillion dollar marketing campaigns to succeed find it harder to turn a profit because people don’t find enough actual value in their output to financially support it.
Jerzy Russian
It seems to me that any time there is less dick pulling involved in something, the better it is.
Maude
@Schlemizel:
The first thing I thought of was Face in The Crowd.
Montysano
I’m a big fan of The Civil Wars, a local-ish (the guy is from just down the road in Muscle Shoals) gothic folk duo. They’ve had a huge year of sold out shows, capped with two Grammy noms, all without a major label deal. Their team makes masterful use of social networking and Youtube. Like Louis CK, they seem to have great respect for their fan base. In this model, talent and hard/smart work pays off. I’m all for it.
RalfW
@RRoss: I disagree.
It’s not like busking.
It’s like the DIY punk rock movement. Living in Austin, TX 15-20 years ago, there were a lot of bands both in Austin and that toured thru there that made a living (or didn’t – such are the risks of self-producing) w/o labels.
I used to help my friends in the seminal Austin art-punk band Ed Hall screen teeshirts before tours. Hundreds of them, in a garage, with good quality home-made silk screens on FTL tees bought on sale at every Sears and Kmart in town.
This was the insurance fund – if the door on the tour didn’t make enough for gas and food, teeshirt and record sales buy the manager at the back of the venue almost always made the difference.
This was not a glamorous life, and this particular band eventually reformed into basically a local band with no East Coast/West Coast tours like the old days (heck, those guys are what 50 now. Uh oh, that means I’m damn near 50 too…).
Anyway, Louis is not busking, he’s self producing. He’s DIY-ing. What he’s learning and discovering is how cool that is. And he’s learning this:
dr. luba
@Montysano: Yup, love the Civil Wars, too. Heard and interview on the radio, and then I legally downloaded their first album for free (a live performance). I loved it so much I bought the second. Know it by heart.
This is what the big record companies miss about file-sharing. Yeah, some people abuse it. But you can’t become a fan if you don’t know the band’s work. I’m not going to buy an album by an unknown artist (unless strongly recommended by someone whose taste I really trust).
But once I know an artist, I will buy their other work (and would prefer to support them, rather than some blood-sucking label). Case in point: I borrowed an Aimee Mann album from the library many years back. Fell in love, and have bought everything she’s produced since.
EconWatcher
Re: geg6: well, i’m a dude (and not a politically correct one) but the humor of louis ck eludes me. I’ve never watched his shows for long, but they’ve always seemed to me pointlessly crude and not very clever. Compare him to, say, chris rock or the old dave chappelle, and he’s got nothing.
catclub
@RalfW: “on FTL tees bought on sale at every Sears ”
Faster than light?! at sears! That is where those neutrinos went.
… oh, fruit of the loom. which should be FOTL
Joey Maloney
Louis CK is the latest in a string of I guess I’d call them midlist artists to adopt this approach, and I think it’s great. (Some others, right off the top of my head: Kevin Smith, Cory Doctorow, Radiohead.) The internet made it logistically possible ten years ago to cut out all the middlemen, but it’s taken until recently for artists to work out a business model. And there isn’t only one, but they all focus around value-added. The nonphysical goods are trivially easy to steal, so savvy artists have figured out various ways to make that ease of distribution a feature and not a bug.
Montysano
@dr. luba:
Don’t know if you’re a vinyl guy or not, but The Civils Wars released a limited edition holiday EP. 4 tracks, 10″ format, on cream-colored vinyl. I was in record geek heaven. Also too, I just inherited 2 tix for their Ryman Auditorium show in January!
What this new model means, at least in the music biz, is that artists must be willing to play live. The bands benefit (they make money, and get better at their craft), and obviously the fans benefit.
maurinsky
I’m a woman, and I don’t just love Louis CK, I lurve him. He’s not a comedian only guys find funny.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@EconWatcher: Yeah, Louis CK has nothing on Chris Rock! That’s why Louis CK was a writer on Chris Rock’s show, because he sucks so much more than Rock! Oh, and that’s probably also why Chris Rock once called Louis CK the best comedian working today. Cuz Louis’s so terrible.
BTW, can someone please point me to the street corner where I can earn $200k busking? I mean, if a terrible comedian like Louis CK can pull in that kind of money by “basically busking,” surely me and my old Silvertone can get the rent paid.
Or are we now simply defining busking as any sort of performance without talentless middlemen syphoning off most of the profit? Won’t that madman Louis CK consider poor Ticketmaster before starting his whacky schemes?
geg6
@EconWatcher:
Yeah, that’s how he strikes me, too. Just not my cup of tea,
No one will ever replace Carlin, I guess. Certainly not this guy. Just because he makes ironic rape jokes does not make him “cutting edge.” I get why people think he is, but I find the entire thing quite offensive, regardless of how much he claims to be on the victim’s side.
If you’re going to be offensive, you better be a lot better at the funny part than this guy is. Perhaps he should read some Hunter S. and learn a thing or two about how to be both funny and offensive as hell.
Mnemosyne
@geg6:
It took me a while to learn to love Louis CK, but his current TV show is really good, if a little melancholy. It was the episode with Joan Rivers that really won me over, where she basically calls him a whiny asshole for being pissed off that he has to cater to his audience and get along with the manager of the venue he’s working at. And the duckling episode was great, too, especially his slow realization that the beautiful NFL cheerleader who befriends him sees him as a father figure, not someone she wants to sleep with.
I don’t mind a comedian who’s a misanthrope that hates everyone. It’s the ones who seem to specifically hate women (or any really specific group of people) who bug me.
Frank
Yes, This model works but you gotta get the respect first.
And the respect means tons of eyeballs and ears seeing and hearing what you are doing. He promoted this on national TV, NPR, reddit and other places. Places where most bands/comedians DON’T have access and he does.
For Talented small guys that have to keep a day job it’s steeper mountain to climb.
carpeduum
So let me guess. Mistermix is an O & A listener. That would explain a lot.
Gromit
@some other guy:
Trouble is, Louis CK didn’t build his fanbase that way. He mostly did it through the old corporate system, and now that he has the money to self-finance and the fanbase to advertise this thing by word of mouth it works out great. But could he have done this while he was still a relatively obscure stand-up comic/comedy writer, even if the material was just as good?
At least it shows that treating your customers like people worthy of respect, rather than like potential thieves, can pay off. Maybe corporate America will learn this lesson someday.
Brachiator
@some other guy:
The problem is that too few artists can earn a decent living depending on this model.
The elimination of the corporate middle man is not really relevant, and is a bit of a dodge. If you are a listener, how is it your business whether an artist has an agent, a manager or is attached to a label?
What is more irritating is to hear people who scream about “content wanting to be free on the net” almost gloating over the idea that artists will might make less money and have to bust their asses making money touring. They have this strange, infantile idea that every artist must be an indie artist, and scrape to make a living of any kind.
These same people also love being able to get almost infinite amounts of music for a low monthly fee from streaming music services even though most studies indicate that it is impossible for artists to earn any money from this model.
Here’s a great visual on how many plays it would take an artist to earn US minimum wage.
It’s obvious that the old business model is crumbling and has got to go. But it is not clear what might work best for artists as well as consumers.
Brachiator
Crap. An earlier comment is in Moderation Heck.
Two things: too many consumers want stuff for free and demand that all artists be starving indie artists.
And here is a great chart showing how hard it is for a musician to earn anything from streaming music services.
Gromit
@some other guy:
Oh, sorry, I see I misunderstood what you are saying. No, I don’t have a problem with that either.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@geg6: So, Carlin’s ironic rape jokes = funny, but Louis CK’s ironic rape jokes = offensive. Sure, he “claims” to be on the victim’s side, but geg6 is too clever to be fooled by this walking rape monster!
Here is his bit about bank fees. Naturally, since this sounds like something that might appeal to those awful, awful OWS kiddies I’m sure you’ll hate it too. I only provide it so you can explain to me which parts prove his love for rape. I’m curious.
@Gromit:
Could he have made 200 large on one show? No, of course not. Could he make enough to live? Sure, lots of people make their livings by producing web content. I’d never tell a budding stand-up comedian to quit touring and focus on their blip.tv show, but having a decent show can increase their exposure and put some money in their pockets. Hell, you can even make money putting videos up on Youtube if you can get a partnership.
Those are ad based, though. Just getting straight up paid by an audience for web content is pretty much impossible for a no-namer.
Brachiator
OK. Can’t seem to get out of Moderation Heck
One last time. Here, hopefully, is a link to a blog post on the difficulty of a musician making any money new media style, The Paradise That Should Have Been.
The old business model doesn’t work, but the new one, for now, is not a viable solution.
RRoss
I’m going to disagree with someone who agrees with me:
This situation is not ‘respecting customers’ it’s begging them to act like human beings.
Here Louis CK, and similar examples like ‘the humble indy bundle,’ have to count on guilt (rather than responsibility) to get people to pay for the stuff they can just take for free.
Even if piracy is just 1% of what some of the most aggressive copyright enforcers think it is, that doesn’t make them any less right and those who can’t seem to live without stealing music/movies/games/etc (even if they “were not going to buy it away”) any less wrong.
Blaming corporations for attempting to stop the theft of their property is lunacy.
The next to only reason they sell stuff online at all is to give themselves a chance against an internet culture that has somehow made theft a “victimless crime.”
PeterJ
@Brachiator:
Seen that image being posted all over for a while now.
Now, do you (or anyone else for that matter), got a source for the claim about Spotify? Other than “Industry sources” and a dead link?
Judas Escargot
@RRoss:
…why is one of these emotions more valid than the other? the artist gets paid, either way.
This reminds me of the old ‘shareware’ model that was popular on the Mac back in the 1990s. There were no free developer tools for the platform back then, so many small-timers just had a ‘pay what you think it’s worth’ model to help cover their developer costs.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Brachiator: I don’t really see how this is any worse for musicians than the good old days, though.
In the old days, a struggling musician played all the gig ze could, made some CDs and maybe stickers and T-shirts to sell, and sent off demos to everyone ze could. Today, they do all of that plus possibly sell some tracks on iTunes.
Nobody said that the digital revolution would suddenly make it easy to succeed as a musician, but it’s certainly not making it any harder. It’s less likely to become a millionaire rock god today (or whatever genre you like), but it’s not like that was ever common.
cckids
@geg6: re: The Warmth of Other Suns; you will love it.
former ohio
bunch of debbie downers in this thread. Lighten up people.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@RRoss:
It’s not lunacy to blame them for putting copy protection on their CDs that prevent me from putting the songs I paid for on my mp3 player. It’s not lunacy to blame them for selling software that stops working any time you go offline or that requires a long code to be entered every single time you use it.
You know what’s lunacy, though? Giving the MPAA and the RIAA unilateral authority to shut down any website just by claiming copyright infringement.
Oh, and I hate to break it to you, but even in out in meatspace guilt is the only thing keeping people from rampantly stealing. Dress it up however you like, but people refuse to steal because doing so will make them feel bad.
PeterJ
@Gromit:
Is there a easy way for a relatively obscure stand-up comic/comedy writer to make $200K?
(Not counting all those ads where anyone can do it and just by working from their home…)
One thing that the image that Brachiator posted actually shows is the staggering difference between selling your cd yourself online or selling it through itunes or record deal.
Sell a CD on iTunes and the record company is getting more than five times as much as the artist, and Apple is getting more than three times as much as the artist…
According to that chart you’ll need to sell 27 times as many albums through a record deal, and 8 times as many albums on iTunes to make the same kind of money as you would make selling them online yourself.
Now you would have to do a lot of work yourself, but then, what kind of promotion do most artists actually get from their record companies? Or from itunes?
WereBear
As someone struggling with this new paradigm myself (working through BJ’s Amazon link,) I think it is what will save us all from the bloated media industries.
The current template in the book industry, I understand, is that when you are selling $5k a month, they will deign to sign you up.
Well, torque that. As someone whose past work was adored but deemed “too hard to market,” I am only a tad bitter and frustrated. So I’ve taken to the Net. If I’m bringing in that much, why should I share any of it with you jerks?
trollhattan
@former ohio:
Ain’t that the truth?
One likely reason this seems to be working is it’s consistent with the artist himself. And yeah, it took me quite awhile to “get” him and his humor but he’s more or less won me over. He’s a top-notch observer of the human condition and is relentlessly brutal on himself. And happens to be damn funny about it. I do find myself sinking between the sofa cushions pretty frequently, not unlike when watching Larry David.
wengler
There has been a lot of talk about ‘theft’ here in regards to digital media, but if you could copy cars for free in seconds you’d see that people would start having different attitude towards car theft too.
The point is that the creator of digital content should be able to reap the rewards of his or her creation equal to its popularity. Notice that this model has no middle man, while for years the media middle man was one of the highest earning people in the business. To the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
And so the question becomes, should we destroy the internet in order to placate media middle men or build a new model that doesn’t include them?
Brachiator
@PeterJ:
I posted another link to a blog post discussion of the issue. And as the google is your friend, anyone who is seriously interested can do even minimal research without working up a sweat.
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
That’s just one method.
The infantile tech brigade blather on and on about how music wants to be free, and is going to be stolen anyway, so copyright should be done away with and musicians should just make money from performing.
Presumably, when the artist is dead, the stream runs dry (no more performing).
A good friend of mine, and her sister, was able to pay for college from the royalties paid to the estate of her father, who was a musician and song writer. The new model that some are so itchy to move to would end this. And we are not talking about a ton of money here, but enough to make a difference.
Also, there was a recent BBC interview with British singer Kate Bush, who has released new music. She has never been hot to go on the road and perform, and has no desire to do so now. And yet the model which would shift almost all earnings to performing and merchandising would make it impossible for her to sustain herself.
I absolutely agree with this.
Keith G
Louis is a hard working and brilliantly productive comic storyteller. His connection to his audience is his honesty as an imperfect man.
If you care about insight into this very good artist, or generally into the world of a stand up, check out his interview with Mark Maron on the WTF podcast
PeterJ
@Brachiator:
If it would only take minimal research, then why don’t you, who is the one making the argument, actually provide the links to prove it?
Minimal research…
But then maybe you aren’t seriously interested?
Brachiator
@PeterJ:
Actually, we are all having a discussion. Everyone can participate, and every one can bring something more than mere opinion.
And since I provided another link to a discussion of this issue, I am not sure what your point is.
PeterJ
@Brachiator: The other link? The one that is linking to a 2009 story about Lady Gaga? A story disputed by Spotify? (Read the update.)
No evidence there either for the numbers you’re spreading.
Here’s an interesting recent comment about digital music services.
If the artists aren’t getting paid, then most likely it’s the same entity screwing them over again.
The record companies.
And the best way to avoid that, is for artists to sell their material themselves.
Like Louie C.K. is doing.
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
True. There are a lot of artists who don’t want to be on the road all the time, either because of temperament (e.g., the late Laura Nyro–stage fright) or circumstance (e.g., Beyoncé, having a baby). To penalize them because “information [including music] wants to be free” is ridiculous. And, if you’re touring, aren’t you giving a ton of money to those equally repellent middle-men weasels at Ticketmaster?
Gromit
@RRoss:
You call it begging, I call it expecting. He’s giving people the chance to do the right thing.
I don’t blame them for trying to stop it, but I do blame them when they try so hard as to alienate their honest customers in the process. The history of DRM is rife with examples of schemes that actually make media more reliable and convenient to use for the pirates than for legit customers. Home video has long been a big offender in this category, with stupid region encoding and copy protection schemes, and making viewers sit through pointless FBI and Interpol warnings EVERY TIME you want to watch a movie. Do you think the pirates keep those warnings when they rip the DVD’s? No, so only legit customers have to sit through them. And studios have no qualms about abusing their control over content playback to then force us to sit through ads on this legally-licensed content, which is one big reason I have ripped so many of my own DVD’s. Can you imagine if CD players were designed to force you to listen to ads before you could enjoy the music? This shows a complete lack of respect for the viewer.
Another example: for years, to play a commercial game on my computer I had to dig out the disc and pop it in my drive, despite the entire disc contents already being installed on a hard disk. Besides being a pain, all this handling increases the risk of damaging the disc. This sort of nonsense drives legitimate users (particularly those who game on laptops) to seek out NoCD hacks just to enjoy the products they legitimately paid for. I used to keep a folder full of disc images to fool these games into thinking I had the CD in a drive.
I’m with you when it comes to resenting pirates, particularly since they are the root cause of all the garbage I have to put up with. But if you frisk everyone who comes in and out of your store, while the thieves just waltz in the back door and take stuff straight from the warehouse, you are going to lose customers, and for good reason.
PeterJ
@Brachiator:
There are shifts. I bet there was a lot of monks crying over Gutenberg and his printing press.
And here’s another version of your argument.
The former model shifted almost all earnings to the artists who make records. Those who refuse and argue that music should be heard live and that every performance should be different will never make as much money as those who make and sell records.
I doubt that Kate Bush would have a problem sustaining if she starts doing what Louis CK is doing. According to the image you approve of (which really is argument for what Louis CK is doing), if she had a high end royalty deal (which I doubt), she would only have to sell one eight of what she normally sells to make the same kind of money.
BTW, you seem to mostly argue against streaming, which this thread wasn’t about, it’s about selling the content yourself.
Brachiator
@PeterJ:
I read this article and am glad that you provided the link. Another article dealing with the issue can be found here, Streaming Music Companies: If The Artists Are Starving, Look To The Labels.
I agree that the deal the record companies are trying to squeeze out of services like Spotify and other services are crappy. Similarly, a recent declaration by an HBO exec that HBO would never be offered independent of a cable service is just stupid.
So, one question might be what payments to artists from streaming sites would be like under a more equitable arrangement.
Brachiator
@PeterJ:
Yeah, but it was more about control than profits.
And issues of piracy and how artists and writers could deal with it, including selling it themselves, accelerated since the invention of the printing press.
That’s funny. I never said that I approved of any particular model. I noted how I think the new model, and the demands that content be free, hurts artists. But I don’t have an easy solution.
Nope. I noted, for example, in my post on my friend who paid for college with her father’s royalties, that there are a lot of ramifications to what a lot of people want as a new model, especially those who want to see copyright simply go away. Selling the content yourself doesn’t resolve these issues.
By the way, Charles Dickens in some ways tried to sell his stuff himself going on tour in America to deal with piracy.
And of course, writers have and continue to fight with publishers over payment issues. But those writers who try to sell their works directly as ebooks are having a tough time making money.