Six Months On: Louis CK’s Unique Way of Releasing a Film

On 10 December 2011, comedian Louis CK released a film of his stand-up routine, Live at the Beacon Theater. Instead of selling the rights to the gig to a big-time TV company, he decided to cut out the middle-man, and release it straight to the public for download through his website, for the modestly-priced sum of $5. The result was outstanding; little over a week later, CK had manage to sell over $1,000,000 worth of downloads. This has inspired other comedians such as Aziz Ansari to follow suit, in a system that reinforces the connection between artist and fan, limits piracy and keeps the price low yet profitable. In promoting the show CK simply used his Twitter account, reaching out to the 1 million+ followers he has.

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