Louie C.K., the renowned comedian, released his latest comedy special in a most unorthodox way: charging $5 for an immediate, DRM-free download from his website. Instead of going with Comedy Central (which released his last special), HBO, or any other network, he chose to cut out the intermediary entertainment companies. Already, as CK discussed on his interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, he’s made a profit.
By exhorting his fans to pay a relatively low price and take part in the experiment of whether he could actually make money using this distribution model, CK proves that the role of intermediaries like music companies, book publishers, and movie studios may not continue to be absolute, or desirable, for both creators and consumers. In our Fall 2010 issue, an Article by Leah Belsky, Byron Kahr, Max Berkelhammer, and Yochai Benkler discussed the models used by some artists that rely upon online cooperation, sharing culture, and variable pricing. The success of this particular experiment adds another entry to the prior instances discussed in our Article, and may herald a snowballing of creator-distributed content.