
Louis CK does it again - 2 audio shows without DRM at $5 each - middus
http://buy.louisck.net/
======
blhack
Here's a thing on conversion:

I'm going to be offering other things through this site. Would you like to
hear about them?

    
    
    	      Yes, I'd like to receive further emails about Louis C.K. things.	
    	      
                  No, leave me alone forever, you fat idiot.
    

No was checked _by default_ , and the phrasing says "Hello, I am a human."

I clicked yes.

~~~
AgentConundrum
I remember when the video came out, the opt-in emailing was a huge deal, and
he commented on the response he got to that in pretty much every interview I
read from him on the subject.

I also opted-in to his mailings, partly because it was opt-in rather than opt-
out, and partly because of his tone. He has some great copy for selling comedy
videos, and now albums. In the email he sent out about the new audio specials,
he had his usual laid back tone, but he also ended with this:

 _> Okay. that was exhausting. Sorry. I didn't even ask you how you are. How
are you? Oh yea? Oh good. That's great. What? Oh man. That's tough. I'm
sorry... Oh well that sounds like you handled it well, though. So. Yeah. Yeah.
I know. I know that's... yeah. Well... Just remember, time will go by and
that'll just be on the list of shit that happened to you. You'll be okay.
Yeah. Huh?... Oh. Really? HE DID? Oh my GOD! hahaha!! That's CRAZY! No. no. I
won't tell him you told me. Of course not. Alright well... uhuh? Oh wow. yeah.
Alright well.. I really gotta go. Thanks for listening. I'm glad you're
basically okay. Stay in touch.

> your friend,

> Louis C.K._

It's almost like treating your customer like a person and not just a wallet
with some flesh hanging off of it helps your cause. It's a novel idea to be
sure.

~~~
kevingadd
I've always held the pet theory that a sufficiently human and casual tone can
overcome a lot of fatigue/wariness that would otherwise stop people from
listening to you. Sometimes, I feel like if you're just completely transparent
and honest with the customer, maybe they'll be willing to listen.

I never managed to convince anyone to try A/B testing a banner ad that
literally just said 'BUY OUR SHIT', though.

~~~
AgentConundrum
That might sound too overly forceful to come off as human and casual. I can
definitely see it working for someone like ThinkGeek though.

------
jrockway
What's more interesting is that he got HBO to release their content in a DRM-
free format. (HBO is the network that previously wouldn't let you buy their
online video service unless you already had cable and an HBO subscription,
rather defeating the purpose of buying the content online.)

 _This_ is what fighting piracy looks like.

~~~
encoderer
Also worth mentioning that they don't "let you buy" their content: it's just
all free. All of it.

I know it sucks that you can't subscribe to HBO Go without being a cable
customer. But for existing HBO users, it's a very, very well done service. The
iPad app is gorgeous and well engineered. It has basically every epoisode of
every season of every HBO series, all HBO original movies, and as far as I can
tell nearly every HBO original documentary, comedy special, etc. And of course
all of the movies HBO is currently running in their rotation.

HBO on Cable runs about $13 a month. I'm sure they could sell subscriptions
just to Go for $20-25. But HBO wants to be a Cable service, not an Internet
service. Nothing wrong with that. They're not luddites trying to avoid
technology: they're using it very effectively. They're just using it in the
way that suits their business model and philosophy.

~~~
georgemcbay
"HBO on Cable runs about $13 a month."

HBO on Cable costs $13 plus whatever your basic cable fees, which after
"introductory rates" often means $80/mo or more. Granted, you get more than
just HBO then, but in the case that you just want HBO and nothing else there
is no sanely priced option.

~~~
encoderer
I'm sorry, and will accept any down votes this gets me, but: duh. Really. That
was my entire point.

Though $80 is definitely inflated.

------
trun
Somewhat related, I think his site has my favorite 'forgot my password' email
ever.

    
    
      Apparently you forgot your password? Ok, so here's your new one, stupid:
    
      EMAIL:    xxxxx@gmail.com
      PASSWORD: moron.xxxxx

~~~
maybird
Are you saying that your password is reset to "moron." followed by your login?

~~~
leftnode
Hah, no, it isn't. I reset mine as well and it was "moron." followed by some
random characters.

------
middus
I just bought both. You'll get 4 downloads for each show and can download MP3
and/or FLAC. Quality seems pretty good to me, but I'm not an audiophile.

~~~
fromhet
"You get 4 downloads" Why limit it? It seems totally against the point. Why
not even let people download a torrent and they can get the video on as many
devices as they please and it wont even stress his servers.

~~~
Pkeod
Distributing by torrent is different from providing a quality download service
with purchase. If someone really wants to download by torrent and wait then
what's stopping them from paying and then doing that.

Limiting number of downloads protects their bandwidth from would be jerks.
Protecting their service is important for their customers to have a quality
experience. It's fair, and most people will only ever download once. If they
for some reason use up all 4 downloads and want more they should e-mail them.
Why wouldn't give more if some had a genuinely good reason for using up their
downloads?

~~~
theon144
Torrent != copyright infringing downloading. What the commenter you're
replying to meant was something like what Humble Indie Bundle did - after you
buy the bundle, you can also officially and legally download it using
bittorrent (as opposed to HTTP), not hitting their servers but rather
volunteers.

------
antidoh
Despite the vague "stickin' it to the man, we're all in this together" vibe
(which I like), I'll note that his T&C is ten browser page-downs worth of
text. Which is fine ...

------
cnbeuiwx
I bought Shameless since Louis CK is awesome, and also because his advisors
wanted him to put DRM and other crap on the shows and he _refused_.

Totally worth the money.

------
Jugglerofmusic
Yo How come nobody has mentioned teh fact that the "Word - Live from Carnegie
Hall" mp3 Files dont work, only the FLAC files work. I know i'm not the only
one who had this problem, ive dl'ed on two different computer and my fried
said he had the same issues, we had to convert the FLAC files to mp3 format,
no mention of this on the site or here. WTF

------
gerold
Folks, why do you upvote this?

I can see the tech aspect about selling DRM free media, alright. But this link
goes straight to a site selling MP3s. In my books thats ADVERTISEMENT.

Don't get me wrong, I like Louis CK. But HN is really the wrong platform to
exchange random entertainment links. Think about why you like this newsfeed,
and help keeping it clean.

------
coffeejunk
he also released his beacon performance as an audio download.

~~~
jeffool
And those who bought the Beacon video, now get the audio as a choice!

~~~
AgentConundrum
s/a choice/an added bonus/

You get the audio in addition to the video now, whether you buy it now or in
the future.

Stand up guy.

------
batista
A guy self-publishes stuff on the internet. News at 11.

~~~
slig
He's not "a guy". He's very famous and has his own TV show that he created,
starred, wrote and post-produced on his macbook. Also, he's also selling his
stuff, without a middleman, DRM-free and with a very decent price.

He is also managing to sell stuff that was from HBO, again, DRM-free and at
reasonable price.

~~~
batista
> _He's not "a guy". He's very famous and has his own TV show that he created,
> starred, wrote and post-produced on his macbook._

So, "a famous guy self publishes on the internet". Does that make it MORE
news-worthy? Famous guys have been self-publishing on the internet for a long-
long time.

 _> Also, he's also selling his stuff, without a middleman, DRM-free and with
a very decent price._

Like tens of thousands of other artists you mean? They even used to do this
pre-internet, e.g. the music tape scene market, or the fanzine market.

I don't get what Louis CK does differently than any other. Famous and non-
famous people have done exactly the same things before, from Stephen King and
Radiohead to thousands of underground bands...

And if we remove the absolute "no middleman" rule (which is not exactly true
in this case, he pays some service for the payment processing for example),
and keep it to mean: "no media company/recording company middleman", then any
of the tens of thousands of bands/artists that use a "submit to music
stores/process payments" middleman TuneCore, CD Baby, etc are doing the same.

~~~
methodin
What's unique here is the whole package - the personal touch, the cheap
product, the honesty and openness. I have never seen anything equivalent on
any big-name person/band on the internet. If you have specific examples please
share them because the Radiohead experiment was one-off and it has long since
ended.

Of course small bands/artists have been doing this - they have no choice. Very
few people break away from the comfort of big-business checks once they get
there to try stuff on their own. You have to remember he could have lost a ton
of money if the original experiment failed, but it did not because people
respect it and supported it.

This is news because it proves DRM-free content at a low price can be a worthy
endeavor that supports the artist directly - not because someone is selling
shit on a website.

~~~
res0nat0r
I think what batista is referring to is the amount of fanboyism on HN related
to these Louis CK threads (and it shows, since his posts are turning grey).

The personal touch thing works because he is a _comedian_ , it isn't anything
new and exciting that hasn't been done before. It works for him because he is
in comedy. Do you think the AWS homepage should have something like 'Yo dawg,
I heard you like EC2, so get up in a m1.xlarge for only $0.08 an hour'? That
doesn't work because it is a huge corporation employing thousands of people.
The Louis CK site is representing one person, who is in comedy.

These endeavors work for him because he is one of the most popular standup
comedians out there and is loved by everyone in the biz, so it is easy for him
to go at this alone since he already has the fanbase.

I just hope that everyone isn't assuming that since Louis CK made $200k profit
off of his last endeavor that they think they can demand HBO release Game of
Thrones online, worldwide the same minute it airs on TV.

~~~
methodin
I personally have no particular affinity towards Louis C.K. but I can
sympathize with disliking fanboyism threads on here. That being said I don't
know why you attempt to equate this particular form of marketing to
corporations or other non-artistic entities. It makes no sense, as you said.
For artists and groups that people like, support and spend money to watch, I
don't see why the mechanics of what Louis C.K. is doing wouldn't translate to
success assuming a current baseline of supporters. After all if all major
comedians did this then that would certainly cause a stir.

I don't believe anyone would make that correlation with shows. It does seem to
support, however, that by offering such things at a low-cost (low barrier to
entry) that they would tend to be just as successful as the package deals and
other ways in which companies like HBO get you to buy them.

