Louis C.K. – A Model for Self-Publishing

One very steady, yet not exactly main stream, market is that of stand-up comedy.  Comedian Louis CK is currently at the forefront of this with a genius, yet some times offensive, live show and hit Tv show, Louie.  It is argued that one of the reasons he keeps such a consistent quality of content is the fact that he handles most of it himself.

Louie started out mainly as a writer for shows like Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Late Show with David Letterman, and no one can forget when he wrote and directed cult classic, Pootie Tang.  Besides all of his movie writing credits, he also writes, shoots, and edits his own stand up specials. His new show, Louie, is approaching its third season, and has already had Emmy nominations for outstanding writing and best lead actor.  His most recent release was a self distributed stand-up special, also produced, written, and edited by CK.

Paying for all the expnses of production between ticket sales for the gigs and his own pocket, CK chose to distribute it only through his website.  For a small Paypal fee of $5, a user can stream or download, or both, the special twice.  Louis addresses the fact that he was advised not to distribute this way because it would be so easy to pirate, but he chose to do it anyway.

But did it work out?

If you will notice, you will see over $1 million dollars…all to him.

He successfully did a stand up special totally DIY and it paid off.  With him being such a stand up guy, CK explain what he will do with the money. 

            250k – Production of the film

            220k – Himself (guy’s gotta eat)

            250k – He’s rewarding the staff that helped him on the special with a “big fat bonus”

            250k – He is donating to charities (listed on his site)

Here’s a guy doing it all himself and not being too greedy about it.  He is acting, whether he likes it or not, as a pioneer for online distribution of this kind.  A Radiohead of standup? Either way he has hit his stride as a comedian and I look forward to any of his releases.  Here is the preview he posted for the special.

**Warning** Topics may have language and topics not appropriate for everyone.

 References:

Louis CK (Go buy the special!)

Culture Map article on special

Laugh Spin - $200,000 profit four days after special is released

Made an Example of: the U.S. Government perfectly times the shut down of Megaupload

The past few weeks, the topic of discussion has been Internet piracy.  Between SOPA, PIPA, and Wikipedia, I’m sure you have run into it. What resulted was one of the largest public protests in history.  With an Internet outcry from users, and blackouts from websites, the public successfully postponed the bills.  Just as the dust of this was settling, however, the government indicted individuals and companies who are responsible for the file-sharing site, Megaupload.  Not only that, but they immediately shut the site down and put up this nice little welcome message:

The funny thing is that most people can name, off the top of their heads, at least half a dozen sites exactly like Megaupload. Right? Not so fast.  What differs is the fact that the owners of this website made millions of dollars from it.  The owner, a cleverly named Kim Dotcom, received millions, which he spent on lavish houses and cars.  They offered a premium membership for users to receive faster upload and download speeds if they paid a fee and helped share Megaupload links over the Internet.  They received high cost ads for their site, which drove them to try and generate more users.  It was reported that this money was laundered through coding teams spanning the US, Europe, and New Zealand; only some of the money going back into the site itself.

Now my question is, even with the blatant disregard for certain laws, was the shut down of Megaupload for justice, or a scare tactic after the small defeat of SOPA/PIPA?  Megaupload has been around since 2005 and the government had a 72-page indictment when they shut the site down January 19^th.  Scheduling coincidence? Or did the government pull one of those moves where, when a child sees he won’t get his way, tattles about something that happened forever ago? Reaching with that analogy? Meh, think about it.

Either way, this leads me to a few more questions:

What will happen to sites, and seemingly legitimate services, like Dropbox?

If there is a crackdown on online cloud computing, the so called future of the Internet, how will this affect heavy hitters like Apple with their iCloud service?

References:
What's left of Megaupload.com
CNN Tech Story on Megaupload
Gizmodo on the Shutdown