
Louis CK inspires Jim Gaffigan to sell comedy special for $5 online - rkudeshi
http://www.whosay.com/jimgaffigan/content/218011
======
mrmaddog
His post seemed a bit off to me. I got the feeling that he's doing this
because "Oh look, Louis CK made metric ton of money this way, lets see if I
can emulate his success" rather than actually understanding the motivations
for why consumers want a 5 dollar, drm free comedy special.

It also seemed strange that he is pre-announcing this release. I think this
initial post will be his biggest shot at publicity, and it is peculiar to have
no call-to-action (i.e. check out my related comedy if you've never heard of
me, go ahead and pre-order it now, etc.). Right now there is nowhere for the
reader to go after finishing the post (his "videos" tab isn't representative
of his standup comedy) and there is very little for a reader to share about
this story besides "Somebody is planning on doing something like Louis CK
did."

I'll be impressed if I remember or hear about this again in April, when the
special is actually released.

~~~
jlack
But even if he is riding the coat-tails of Louis CK, isn't it still a good
thing that more people are starting to provide direct content for very
reasonable prices?

~~~
AgentConundrum
It is, but if Gaffigan squanders the marketing potential of this, then it will
have a serious impact on how much money his special brings in.

Since this is only the second time a (well known, mainstream) comedian has
tried this, a failure or even just a poorer-than-expected showing could make a
lot of other entertainers write Louis CK off as being a one-time thing.
They'll assume he succeeded as a novelty and will be more wary of trying it in
the future.

We need Gaffigan to succeed to show that the model is repeatable in order to
convince others to try it. If he fails, it will be that much harder to
convince others that they're not better off just following the status quo.

~~~
jordanlev
But if nobody finds out about the special and he doesn't make money, wouldn't
that also mean people don't know about the failure?

~~~
AgentConundrum
No, because we're talking about two different groups.

Just because the general public doesn't know of the special, and therefore
doesn't know of it's failure, other entertainers will. It's their job - the
business side of their job - to keep up to date with these sorts of things.

------
staunch
Louis CK paid like $30k to setup his site for streaming his special. Gaffigan
will probably pay some similarly absurd amount.

What HNer is going to setup the simple solution for all the comedians that
want to copy Louis CK but don't want to figure it out and spend $30k?

Transcoding + S3 + Stripe + Reporting dashboard + handholding with a flat
5%-20% fee or something.

It could even be an iTunes-like competitor. Web-based, video content, DRM-
free. Enter your credit card once and you can easily buy all the different
specials. Maybe the price tag would be a good angle: justfive.com, afiver.com,
etc. Then again maybe they'd want it to be purely white label.

Would be cool if the next guy said: "Alright, I saw what Louis CK and Gaffigan
did. I'm going to put my new special up on justfive.com"

Someone do it!

~~~
patio11
Design: $2k, coding: $5k, convincing Louis CK to use you over everyone else in
the world for the most important moment of his career to date: $23k.

And honestly, given the results, they undercharged.

~~~
tptacek
Just because it snags my overliteral nerd brain: this wasn't the most
important moment of Louis CK's career. Louis CK is a giant of modern standup
comedy.

~~~
dasil003
Why is it not the most important moment of his career? Are you saying there
was one break he had that really was the difference between his being a mega-
successful A-list standup comedian and being a struggling pauper? Because his
little stunt seems to be one of the biggest success stories of indie
distribution to date. He would be rich either way, but maybe what is important
to him is changing the world in which case I could easily see how this was the
most important thing.

~~~
tptacek
We're talking about someone with multiple seasons of an eponymous show on FX,
a full season of an eponymous show on HBO, and numerous HBO standup specials,
along with a studio film director credit, all this following a long career as
a TV writer, and we think this Internet special was somehow his break?

I don't know, maybe you'll be right in the long run, but I'd bet against you
being right.

I'll put it differently: Louis CK will end up being more important to the
Internet than the Internet will be important to Louis CK.

~~~
dasil003
Who said anything about "his break"? What he did on the Internet was certainly
more novel than his previous stuff which has been by countless other people.
Again, the "importance" of that is up to Louis to decide, but it's not as
obviously ridiculous an assertion as you seem to think.

~~~
dasil003
I'm saddened by the downvotes without any type of on-point rebuttal. Guys
there have been thousands and thousands of CK-level entertainers over a
hundred years, but how many have done anything resembling this recent special?

~~~
pessimizer
>Why is it not the most important moment of his career?

is not a serious question, esp. in light of tptacek's laundry list which you
are replying to - it's really up to you to make a positive case rather than up
to the universe to make a negative one; and:

>how many [of the thousands and thousands of CK-level entertainers over a
hundred years] have done anything resembling this recent special?

is not a serious argument, though it seems to be a declaration that selling
his own movie has made him the greatest entertainer (at his level) in history,
which is funny.

~~~
dasil003
Well thanks for piling on. I know you can't down vote this, but I'll leave it
here for someone else to do so.

------
sp332
While I'm glad to see this, I still think he's missing the point. The part
where he asks people not to steal his stuff is unnecessary. Of course this
will be passed around by friends and pirated on P2P networks. But: the pirates
don't count, his customers do. If there's one pirate, how much money do you
make? $0. It there are 1,000,000 pirates, how much? Still $0. So don't sweat
the pirates. This new system is good because it gives the producers control,
and a much more direct relationship with their fans. It's really got nothing
to do with levels of piracy.

~~~
mrchess
Steal in that context is a powerful word as it blatantly suggests he already
accused all customers of being a thief of some sort. Not only that, he is
trying to guilt people into buying his product with the follow up sentence,
"why would you steal from a vet".

He is doing it wrong.

~~~
BHSPitMonkey
I think you should re-read the post with the mindset that he is, after all, a
comedian. Sure, this is an issue we all care about here, but there's no need
to be overly serious about the tone of Jim's post. He's trying to come off as
funny.

------
jwblackwell
Currently, there is a huge incentive for performers and artists to follow this
route of distributing their content. It is still seen as novel and championed
by fans, resulting in increased exposure that wouldn't of happened if they
would of chosen a normal route for selling their products.

Don't get me wrong, it's good to see this stuff happening but I think the more
we see of it the less effective it will be for the artists and they may have a
tougher time doing so well.

~~~
TylerE
Incentive for _established_ comedians. Don't minimize the need to be able to
front the $100k+ to do the initial filming, venue, rental, etc.

~~~
vibrunazo
There's a bit of overhead in this price due to him trying to bandage fix an
old model with some features of a new one. Instead of trying to reinvent it.

If you think about it, you can do a stand up comedy with a cheap at home or at
a bar with friends. And upload it to YouTube as a private video and/or use
existing platforms to sell video.

They could save a lot. They're only not doing this because they just started
taking baby steps away from the existing model. Plus they don't know any
better, Louis spent a fortune just to setup that simple website. He could have
used existing platforms. If he doesn't know how to use those, then here's a
startup opportunity.

~~~
TylerE
But that's not the same value proposition.

The deal is "professionally shot/produced/edited video shot at in a venue with
good lighting and sound, in front of a live audience". You're not replicating
that for $500.

------
cemerick
Once 50 performers do similar things, a company or two will start up offering
production and marketing assistance to "self-publishing" artists, in exchange
for a cut of sales. And, the old system will be reborn, much leaner, more
effective and efficient for all involved, and artists can go back to doing
what they love instead of dicking around with final cut for hours.

~~~
dpcan
Wasn't that where Odeo was going before the founders abandoned it and went
with Twitter?

------
paulhauggis
It's interesting because it's all over the torrent networks (Louis's $5 comedy
special).

It shows you that it's not about: price, protection, or availability. Many
times it's just because people want it for free and are not willing to part
with their hard-earned money.

I also think that most people bought this only because they wanted to prove to
the world that it would work (DRM-less and cheap media).

When it becomes a popular thing to do, artists will see the reason why you
need to charge a little more+have some sort of protection in the first place.
DRM and other protection schemes were invented after the result of mass
piracy.

The problem is that whatever the reason is, there isn't any way to stop it
(without taking away too many freedoms). It's too late. So, the answer for
software is to only make services (and charge a monthly fee) and other
industries need to figure out ways to change their business models and use the
fact that people will pirate it to their advantage.

~~~
alxp
> I also think that most people bought this only because they wanted to prove
> to the world that it would work (DRM-less and cheap media).

I think the number of people concerned with making a gesture to push some
political agenda about DRM is dwarfed by the number of people who like Louis
C.K.'s stuff from HBO and FX and think $5 is a great deal for a 60 minute
special.

------
youtothrowaway
What I just sent him (pending moderation):

Congratulations for being the first larger-name comedian to jump on the
bandwagon. However, I'd like to offer up a great big "Go Fuck Yourself" for
not getting why Louis C.K. did it, and what he ultimately learned. Your
2-months-prior-to-release announcement clearly shows that you saw that Louis
made money, and you're going to make a half-assed effort to kinda-sorta
emulate what he did. And if you fail (because you don't get how to market on
the internet), you'll blame it on Pirates.

You're an idiot because you don't understand the difference between copying
and stealing.

Stealing requires you to incur a loss of property. When a file is
copied/downloaded, the original still exists.

When you say that a Pirate is stealing your property, you make an ass of
yourself to anyone who understands the difference between moving a file from
one folder to another, and copy/paste.

You're not even losing any intellectual property, because you can't claim
ownership of any copy you did not originally create.

Gabe Newell has taught many businessmen that Pirates are merely underserved
customers. Treating them like criminals leads to stupid shit like Metallica
suing their fans for downloading their songs, and losing all credibility with
anyone that doesn't work for Viacom or Paramount.

And fuck your military contribution. Doug Stanhope once said that most people
that are in the military kinda/sorta want to kill someone. War is an outlet
for those people to legally murder people, usually of a different skin color.
If I give you $5 for your show, you'd better not donate a DIME of my money to
them.

Good Job raising publicity. Many of us at
­<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=359­5285> are making fun of how little
you understand this business model right now. Maybe in April you'll get some
of this publicity you just wasted with a pre-announcement.

It probably won't be approved. That's fine. there's no other way to contact
him on his website. Another sign that he's clearly not in control of this
thing, and is just bandwagoning.

------
nchlswu
I'm very interested in how this turns out. I personally have never heard of
Jim Gaffigan and Louis CK has steadily been gaining mainstream popularity.
When music artists did this, didn't their popularity have a significant part
of their success?

~~~
hodder
Jim Gaffigan is hilarious.

~~~
thematt
Yeah. Gotta watch him, if only for the skit about hot...pockets.

~~~
shasta
Just YouTubed this skit. Not funny. Forget the $5, I want my 5 minutes back.

------
jennyjitters
I hope this turns out well for him. I'm also hopeful that more musicians and
comedians will follow suit. I also agree that he shouldn't worry about how
many people pirate it...people will do that regardless. It's the people who
don't pirate it that count. Personally, I probably wouldn't normally purchase
one of his albums for $20/$25, but the fact that he is taking a big step by
doing this and separating himself from a large corporation is reason enough
for me.

------
awolden
Even if the video is highly pirated, I wonder if he will make more with his $5
per distribution then with the $0.XX he would get otherwise. People say that
the internet will destroy creative enterprise, but I think just the opposite.
I think artists will be more empowered once they embrace the opportunities of
this new medium and learn to cut out the middlemen.

~~~
zecho
Oh there will still be middlemen in the entertainment industry. The difference
is that instead of entertainers working for the middle men, once they reach a
certain popularity, the middle men will work for the entertainers.

And really, this is nothing all that new. Musicians have been creating their
own labels for decades, often selling as an imprint to larger labels.

I think the key takeaway here is the distribution model, not necessarily the
organizational model. The Gaffigans and Radioheads and Louie CKs of the world
don't have the organizational baggage that the big content producers have.
They also don't have the supposed things to lose that the big producers have.
So, they're freer to experiment.

I hope, and I'm sure many media consumers agree with me, that as these big
acts begin to diverge from their former masters and build their own
organizations, that the distribution model that survives long term is the one
that doesn't ultimately attempt to screw over us consumers.

Time will tell, I suppose.

------
jakemcgraw
I remember this feeling... yes, when Amazon started offering DRM free MP3
downloads at 80% cost of an iTunes DRM'd MP3. Digital video may finally be
turning the corner, very exciting times.

------
ErikRogneby
Time for a humble bundle style package for indie comics...

------
klahnakoski
Is there a site (or sites) where I can purchase content and the money goes
entirely to human creators of that content? I love standup, I love the little
guys, but catching them on the day they may be in my city is very
inconvenient. It is too bad all those comics can not have a central site to
catch their acts, and they can be paid (even if some money gets funneled to
that site for costs).

------
dman
Hope this trend picks up!

------
ggwicz
Joe Rogan said he'd do the same on his podcast, which would be great. More
artists should do this, in all mediums.

~~~
mforsberg
I think it will be an option for many indie publishers in all mediums in a not
to distant future.

On the other hand I'm not really sure about the way Gaffigan lays it out,
which is not making me want to spend $5.

