Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon Theater for 5 dollars

[M3Bahn]

Can't wait to see this and think it's a cool thing for him to be trying out.

Hello. I have zero idea what is about to happen. I'll answer as many questions as I can. I'm sure I don't have to mention that if you go to http://www.louisck.com you can buy my latest standup special "Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon Theater for 5 dollars via paypal. You don't have to join paypal. The movie is DRM free and is available worldwide. It's all new material that has not been in a special or on my show and will never be performed again and it's not available anywhere else. I'm sure I don't need to mention any of that so I won't bother.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comment...is_is_a_thing/


Louis C.K. Doesn’t Get Torrents, But Gets Distribution

http://torrentfreak.com/louis-c-k-do...bution-111210/

[xtac]

i torrent'd it. will buy if its good

[MCMLXXXIX]

watched this last night. its fucking hilarious

[M3Bahn]

It was good but not his best.

[MCMLXXXIX]

yea I liked "hilarious" more..and his old one Shameless. but his skit on random kids trying to play with his family killed me. and Jizanthapus

I hope he continues to release recordings like this

[Bimmer84]

By far the best comedian...

The tripping part had me rolling...

(this clip is from the show)

[NYCGP]

I love Louis C.K... However, we continue to languish through a dark age of comedy. We need someone to step up and replace the great Dave Chapelle.

[Bimmer84]

I do agree overall with the current comedians. Shows like Jeff Dunham show that comedy is dying. There are still some good ones out there though. If you watch his show Louie, it hints to that quite often about the drought comedy is going through.

[yakev724]

I bought it, and I almost never buy media.

Hopefully this sort of distribution catches on. Only way that'll happen is if it's as profitable as the DRM/Protection-laced shit that's sold.

[NYCGP]

Just read through the reddit thread... I will say again.. I love Louis C.K.. A real man of the people. Better still, a real person.

[M3Bahn]

Originally Posted by xtac

i torrent'd it. will buy if its good

Sure you will...

[M3Bahn]

This show is a must watch.
http://www.hbo.com/comedy/talking-funny/index.html

[M3Bahn]

Originally Posted by NYCGP

I love Louis C.K... However, we continue to languish through a dark age of comedy. We need someone to step up and replace the great Dave Chapelle.

Chapelle is genius, I laugh my ass off no matter how many times I have seen the same bit.

[CollinsE90]

Cool as hell for him to make a thread on Reddit like that, and answer 50 times elaborately.

[yakev724]

Originally Posted by Louis C.K.

People of Earth (minus the ones who don't give a shit about this): it's been amazing to conduct this experiment with you. The experiment was: if I put out a brand new standup special at a drastically low price ($5) and make it as easy as possible to buy, download and enjoy, free of any restrictions, will everyone just go and steal it? Will they pay for it? And how much money can be made by an individual in this manner?

It's been 4 days. A lot of people are asking me how it's going. I've been hesitant to share the actual figures, because there's power in exclusive ownership of information. What I didn't expect when I started this was that people would not only take part in this experiment, they would be invested in it and it would be important to them. It's been amazing to see people in large numbers advocating this idea. So I think it's only fair that you get to know the results. Also, it's just really cool and fun and I'm dying to tell everybody. I told my Mom, I told three friends, and that wasn't nearly enough. So here it is.

First of all, this was a premium video production, shot with six cameras over two performances at the Beacon Theater, which is a high-priced elite Manhattan venue. I directed this video myself and the production of the video cost around $170,000. (This was largely paid for by the tickets bought by the audiences at both shows). The material in the video was developed over months on the road and has never been seen on my show (LOUIE) or on any other special. The risks were thus: every new generation of material I create is my income, it's like a farmer's annual crop. The time and effort on my part was far more than if I'd done it with a big company. If I'd done it with a big company, I would have a guarantee of a sizable fee, as opposed to this way, where I'm actually investing my own money.

The development of the website, which needed to be a very robust, reliable and carefully constructed website, was around $32,000. We worked for a number of weeks poring over the site to make sure every detail would give buyers a simple, optimal and humane experience for buying the video. I edited the video around the clock for the weeks between the show and the launch.

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. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.

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).

I probably sound kind of crazy right now. It's been a really fun and intense few days. This video was paid for by people who bought tickets, and then bought by people who wanted to see that same show. I got to do exactly the show I wanted, and exactly the show you wanted.

I also got an education. And everything i learned are things i was happy to learn.
I learned that people are interested in what happens and shit (i didn't go to college)

I learned that money can be a lot of things. It can be something that is hoarded, fought over, protected, stolen and withheld. Or it can be like an energy, fueled by the desire, will, creative interest, need to laugh, of large groups of people. And it can be shuffled and pushed around and pooled together to fuel a common interest, jokes about garbage, penises and parenthood.

I want to thank Blair Breard who produced this video and produces my series LOUIE, and I want to thank Caspar and Giles at Version Industries, who created the website.

I hope with all of my heart that I stay funny. Otherwise this all goes to hell. Please have a safe and happy holiday, and thank you again for all this crazy shit.

Sincerely,
Louis C.K.

.

[stefan]

It's really cool that he'd rather make a little less money performing the show and selling it at $5 then he would if a large company had ran it.

[CollinsE90]

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).

hahahahaha

[M3Bahn]

I'm glad it's working out for him but I expected funnier stuff like this.

[MadDog]

Latest post by Louis CK:

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.


Link

[mact3333]

George Carlin and Louie CK definitely my fav comedians...anyone see that one episode where Louie goes to dentist and gets anesthetic gas and dreams of being in middle east and all of a sudden peeling and eating a banana and then he wakes up and the dentist is zipping up his pants.....

Here is another one...NSFW!

[CollinsE90]

Louis' publicist can go on vacation, he gained many brownie points doing this.

[mact3333]

and for the religious people Louie has a a treat for you too....NSFW.