A Statement from Louis CK

Basically the coolest guy ever. Louis CK did a stand up act, filmed, produced, and sold it himself on his website for $5 and did not put any copyright protection or anything on it. He wanted to see how people would respond vs illegally downloading. This is the result.  

Pardon the Language.

-----Original Message-----
From: Louis C.K. [mailto:info@louisck.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2011 8:44 AM
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Subject: A statement from Louis CK

Hi.  This is LOuie.  It seriously is me. Im even going to leave

the O stuipdly capatalized because who would pay an intern to do

that?? Okay so you bought the thing with my fat face on it and

you clicked the button that said i could email you. And i know

that now you are thinking "aw shit. Why'd i let this guy into my

life this way?". Well dont worry. Because i really swear it that

i wont bug you. I will not abuse this privalage of having your

email. You wont hear from me again... Probably, unless i have

something new to offer you. The reason i'm writing now, in the

back of a car taking me to the Tonight Show set, is to let you

know that as of now there is some new and cool stuff on my site,

related to Live at the Beacon Theater. Theres a thing where you

can download and print a dvd box cover and label so you can burn

and make your own dvd of the video. And theres a new option where

you can gift the special to as many people as you want (for 5

bucks each) and they'll get a nice gifty email from you with a

link to the video.

Also, some of you may know, i recently made a statement (that

sounds so dumb. Like i'm the president or something) about how the

video has been doing online. Im pasting it in here below in case

you missed it.

Lastly I'm planning to put some more outtakes of the show on

youtube and i think i will put one on the site that is only

available for free to you folks on this list, who bought the

thing and opted in. But dont hold me to that because really i

just thought of it and typed it.

Okay well please have a happy rest of the year and more happy

years after that. And please even have been happy in your past.

What?

Thanks again for giving me 5 dollars. I bought 3 cokes with it.

Regards. Sincerely, Actually,

Louis

===========================

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.

--

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