:popcorn:

who says you need obtrusive DRM to make money ......

Louis CK: Over $1 Million In Sales In Just 12 Days For DRM-Free Download (http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20111222/12435717172/louis-ck-over-1-million-sales-just-12-days-drm-free-download.shtml)

from the polite,-awesome-and-human dept

As you probably recall, comedian Louis CK kicked off a brilliant little experiment in getting people to buy his latest comedy special, by being polite, awesome and human. He offered up a direct-to-fan offering, with no DRM, from his own site for $5, and he did so while being totally open about the process and his thinking, which only endeared him to more people. After four days, he had brought in over $500k, and twelve days in, he's surpassed $1 million, and he's got the screenshot from PayPal to prove it:



Once again, his writeup shows that this has been quite a success, as he admits that he's never had a million dollars suddenly dumped on him like this. Also, again, his writeup reinforces what worked about this in the first place, the fact that he's being polite, awesome and human:

[follow link for photo]

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.

He then explains what he's doing with the million dollars. $250,000 will go to pay off expenses related to the website. Another $250,000 is going to his staff and the people who helped work on the show. As he says "I'm giving them a big fat bonus." Then he's taking $280,000 and giving it away to a list of charities:

The Fistula Foundation
The Pablove Foundation
charity: water
Kiva
Green Chimneys

What's interesting is he notes that he learned about some of these via recommendations people made to him via Twitter -- once again, showing that he's reaching out and connecting with fans.

And therein lies the potential for a different world. One where artists get paid, not record companies and promoters. One where candidates get donations and have no monetary allegiance to 'big' money entities.

There is nothing wrong, per say, with record companies and promoters and big money interests. Unless they have too much power and say so.

Consider a given candidate who has to kowtow to the powers that be as well as kiss babies, go to endless functions, give the same speech 6 nights a week and so forth. He or she becomes president and affects us all to the tune of $1,000's of dollars, maybe more, per person in legislation, war, energy policy, you name it. Obama alone has cost every one of us about $17,000 so far.

What if a candidate catches fire? Senate races. House races. Governor. You name it. If it took Obama 70 million votes to win and he raised nearly a billion dollars and yet went on to disappoint the vast majority of his supporters, that is $15 per person, PER VOTER, to come up with a billion dollars.

So, candidate 'Cut Spending' comes along on a platform that says "I will cut spending by X my first term. Send me $15 if you'd like to not have another $17,000 in debt added to your tab and your children's tab and their children."

Oh, the possibilities.

:buddies: