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AfterDawn > News > Louis CK's Live At The Beacon passes $1 million in sales

Louis CK's Live At The Beacon passes $1 million in sales

Written by Rich Fiscus (Google+) @ 22 Dec 2011 17:08 User comments (8) When comedian Louis CK decided to finance and sell his video, Live At The Beacon, himself, he didn't have any idea how successful it would be. Now he knows the answer is more than $1 million in sales in less than two weeks.
He announced the milestone last night while being interviewed by Jimmy Fallon. "Yesterday we hit a million bucks," he said, "that was ten days on sale."

One of the hallmarks of this experience for him has been honesty about the financial side of things. Not just how much he has made, but also his expenses. He took that a step further last night by talking about what he is doing with the money he has made so far:

I felt uncomfortable about having that much money, so I kind of broke it in four pieces. Two fifty went back to pay for the special, like I replenished my company. Another two fifty went to people that work for me, that work really hard. I gave them all bonuses. And then I took another 280 thousand and donated it to a bunch of charities.

Today he posted an update on his website saying: Image via louisck.net

Of course there's no reason to think that's the end of his earnings from the special, which you can still buy for just $5 from his website. The download is DRM free, and can be downloaded in either SD (800x448) or HD (720p) H.264 format.

There is also an option to stream it. Access is limited to streaming it twice and downloading three times to save bandwidth costs. You can also download artwork for it for free.
Tags: video Louis CK DRM-free $5 $1 million
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8 user comments

122.12.2011 17:33
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Not only was he able to bypass the corporations, he was able to fund his company, pay his employees a generous wage, help out numerous charities.......and still live a comfortable lifestyle.
He sets an example for the rest of them that's for sure.

222.12.2011 18:09
Staff Member

Great comedian and great man.

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322.12.2011 18:32
Junior Member

I wish he was my boss

423.12.2011 1:29
AfterDawn Addict

Hopefully others will take the lesson...even if they don't treat their employees well or give to charity; at least do DRM-free for cheap. 523.12.2011 4:32
Unverified new user

This is a lessons for the greedy bastards from RIIA, XIIA, SHITIIA and other greedy bastards like them.

Also, I hope this and Megaupload's future plans for Megabox are example that all artists will take note of.

If you sell digital content 10 times cheaper you don't make 10 times less money. Most likely, you'll make 100+ times more money, because you'll lower the price bar enough so it becomes not so much financially, but rather psychologically comfortable to buy for 1000+ times more people then it was initially.

This is the Internet. This is worldwide audience FOR FREE.
Stop giving your work to big media labels! They price it more just so they can make more off of you, but this crushes the sales, which leaves you with less scraps, while they only gorge less. They feel less gorging. You feel more hunger.

623.12.2011 14:01

Great story. Now if he could just say anything that was even amusing, let alone funny. Keep hearing what a great comedian he is; haven't heard it.

723.12.2011 20:52
Senior Member

Originally posted by DVDBack23: Great comedian and great man.

That's probably because he's also not a prick and desperate for attention like most celebrities, I love his view on facebook and twitter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSSDeesUUsU 824.12.2011 11:45

the problem with this, and other stuff like what radiohead did, is that they are already known acts. good for them, for shedding their corporate overlords and all, but they wouldn't have had anywhere near the sales numbers if not for their previous corporate entanglements.

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