
Monty Python Puts Free Videos Online, Sells 23,000% More DVDs - nickb
http://i.gizmodo.com/5137827/monty-python-puts-free-videos-online-sells-23000-more-dvds
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Mistone
"But when you're a bunch of pricks, people go to The Pirate Bay and think of
you as the enemy, and then you don't get any money. Take notes, you idiots."
v. funny indeed

~~~
unalone
Funny - and so true. There's a working business model online, and people who
take advantage of it will most certainly benefit.

~~~
peterb
The MPAA & RIAA are all about distribution. They want to maintain a lock on
content so they (the distributors) make money, not the artists.

~~~
unalone
I largely agree. I think they're on the decline now. I don't know if whatever
follows them will be better, but I'd like to think there's at least a chance.

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alaskamiller
The real winner out of all of this, day in and day out, is Amazon.

~~~
ivankirigin
I hate owning DVDs. I'd much prefer a file I control or open access to a
streaming file I have unlimited authorization to watch.

Amazon won't win in the streaming / file space unless something changes.

~~~
alaskamiller
I believe the sustainable model for media distribution is to micro-charge
multiple time for the ability to timeshift and placeshift content. A
convenience tax, so to speak. Physical mediums are antiquities in our digital
device world.

Those eggheads over at YouTube/TiVo/Apple/Amazon/Microsoft surely must be
working on something like this. I mean, how else do any of them justify their
salaries?

~~~
unalone
I don't know if "antiquities" is quite the right word. There's always
something to be gained from the existence of the physical format. With albums,
for instance, there's the artwork and file quality that you can only achieve
with records. (It's why new record players are still being made.) Books can
achieve things that ebooks cannot. Same with paintings versus photographs,
plays versus movies, DVDs versus digital downloads.

Better to say that the physical medium is no longer the only _existing_
medium. Where they once dominated, now they'll become niche like most mediums
do once they're past cutting-edge. But antique suggests something that's over
and done with, and incapable of advancing. On the contrary, I think that
physical media will continue to innovate.

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alaskamiller
They will no longer be used as a means of distribution but rather products or
art to appreciate on its own merits for the subculture of people that still
obsess about something like that. Cultural artifacts of antiquities.

~~~
unalone
They said that about records how long ago? And yet every generation, new bands
see fit to release records of their stuff.

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sh1mmer
I guess this was a good way for Python to reach new and younger audiences that
haven't seen their magic before.

On a side note I'm somewhat surprised to see gizmodo actually call the MPAA
and RIAA "a bunch of pricks". Not that it isn't true.

~~~
unalone
Gizmodo is rarely formal. It's nice at times like this, less nice when they
raise damaging rumors like they have in the past.

Monty Python shows yet again that they're not just funny, they're very bright
and very business-savvy.

~~~
likpok
IIRC some of them (the pythons) met at Oxford. I think at least one may have a
higher degree of some sort.

~~~
unalone
I wouldn't at all be surprised if that was the case. Beyond degrees, though,
they advanced comedy in a lot of ways. In two different parts of my life, Holy
Grail and Life of Brian changed my attitude of what comedy was capable of
doing. Gilliam's Brazil had a similar effect on me. And John Cleese was one of
the best writers of his era. Still would be, though I'm not sure how much he
writes nowadays.

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vlad
The Python language (funny that in this context, I can't just say "Python" on
Hacker News) was named after this show.

~~~
biohacker42
So what you're saying is that Guido van Rossum bought most of those DVDs?

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dimitar
No. The Python programming language is a great advertisement for the show.
Especially in areas in which it wasn't aired. I would have never heard of the
show if GvR didn't name his language after it. Its said that its named after
the TV series in every book about the language, on the website and in
Wikipedia.

~~~
wizard_2
it doesn't help that Python's interactive console is named Idle
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDLE_(Python)> and they have an IDE named Eric
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Python_IDE>

~~~
likpok
Also spam and eggs are common metasyntatic variables, and references to the
pythons in comments is encouraged.

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m0nty
I wish people wouldn't say 23,000% when it would be more comprehensible to say
230 x. It's a bit like those submissions to other news sites where they would
say 23,000.00% to make the number look _even_ bigger.

/hobby horse

~~~
nazgulnarsil
23000% actually means *231

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vaksel
just like everything in life, this will only pay off for the first few. Right
now people are willing to pay to reward the artists who are willing to tell
the RIAA/MPAA to piss off...but once everyone starts doing it, it'll revert to
just the natural sales to the fans etc.

~~~
snprbob86
I honestly don't think the average, non-technical, sub-intellectual person
puts that much thought into these things.

What is happening here seems pretty clear to me:

People are looking for entertainment, they are finding some on YouTube, they
see an ad for more of the same enjoyment, they whip out their credit cards and
pay for it.

If this story happened in a college dorm room and the entertainment-seeker's
roommate had them all on DVD already, he would have said "Here, watch mine."
If he had them all on his hard drive, he would have said "here, plug in my
external".

It seems like people are simply following the path of least resistance.

~~~
alex_c
> It seems like people are simply following the path of least resistance.

I agree 100%, and any discussion of online piracy that does not include this
concept is horribly, horribly incomplete.

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likpok
It's the itunes model all over again.

People want media in easy-to-consume form. They want it easy to browse and
get.

Most will pay a nominal sum for it. Some will not.

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zandorg
I don't know if many people realise it, but the use of the term 'spam' came
from a Monty Python sketch originally. It's not too difficult to correlate
what they meant: You can have whatever you want, as long as it's with spam.

~~~
unalone
Spam was a physical food product originating in 1937, before the Pythons
existed. Stood for "Shoulder of Pork and Ham". It was a popular product before
Monty Python made their joke about it.

~~~
zandorg
My point was that the Python sketch _based on the tinned food_ turned into the
e-mail SPAM meme. The sketch was the basis of the e-mail term, in other words,
in computing folklore, by saying that e-mail SPAM comes with everything. I'm
not sure if Wikipedia lists it, but you can find this meme explained.

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queensnake
Y'know, Monty Python is special, people love them, and their pitch asks for
support. Not everyone who gave up their goods in HQ would see a 230x
improvement in sales. So this isn't a good test of the 'give it all away'
idea.

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kungfooey
When I first scanned this headline I thought it was something about a
storefront running on Python selling a whole lot of movies.

But, hey, Monty Python > Python.

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zandorg
If I'm not mistaken, the copyright holders aren't Cleese & co - I'd have
thought it was the BBC, payed for via the TV license in the 1960's.

