????"If the trend continues with sales on this video," he wrote, "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."
????He also made the video DRM-free. He was worried about piracy, and he's been pleading with his fans to not put the video on bittorrent sites. Of course, it was pirated within minutes, which might be cutting into sales a bit. But with a $5 price point, the incentive to download pirated copies is almost nil. True fans will pay it and, given how successful the enterprise has been for all concerned, piracy can be seen as simply a cost of doing business rather than the Armageddon the media industry sees.
????Most important to Louis and his fans, though, is this: "I got to do exactly the show I wanted, and exactly the show you wanted." Indeed, this might be the funniest hour of standup Louis CK has ever done.
????Of course, it helps that Louis was -- thanks in part to big media companies -- already famous. The funniest comedian in the world couldn't have done something like this on such a scale if he or she were unknown. And standup specials are one thing -- produced television is something else. Even Louis needs a network like FX to finance production and distribution of his sitcom, Louie, though it should be noted that it's done on the cheap, and the network lets Louis do basically whatever he wants. He demanded that freedom going in, and the show is successful for that reason.
????Media companies will be around for a long time to come, to develop talent and distribute product (though the Internet eating into that part of the business, too -- just look at the success of comedy podcasts by relative unknowns). But the fact that no big companies were involved in this should give pause to all media executives who think they know better than performers what audiences want, and how much they're willing to pay to get it.
