http://www.npr.org/2011/12/13/143581710/louis-c-k-reflects-on-louie-loss-love-and-life 

Itunes/amazon mp3 etc has kinda sorta almost maybe done that for music, but even then, they get a cut, and the tracks are coming from the record companies who also got a cut.  I’d rather give my money right to the artist.

His opening ‘what to do with my dead body ‘ bit was a LOT like this David Cross bit. And then the ‘Chinese’ thing was a bit like a Ricky Gervais bit but not too much, but then he said he was a ‘professional asshole’, and that’s like totally from ‘Fame’, the TV series.

The parenting stuff was gold though, and I was with him to the end after that.

Yes, yes and yes. $5 went to Louis CK.

I’m going to guess that a large part of that cost is the bandwidth. Based on the cost of Amazon S3 file hosting (not sure what he’s actually using), for each 100,000 copies downloaded (the file is a little over a gigabyte) he’s looking at between $5,000 and $7,000. 

Not sure what his sales numbers are at now, but it seems possible that he could exceed that $32,000 in bandwidth costs alone if it continues to sell so well (he’d need to sell 500,000+ copies, so we’ll see I guess).

I think there are a LOT of random factors playing in, so I think it’s about working hard until you get lucky. Some people work very hard and never get lucky and others the opposite. Thats why it’s a good idea to try and just do things you love to do, that way it won’t matter so much if you never make big bucks. 

Well maybe I didn’t get the question and in that case this might make much sense..

Paypal is the Microsoft of this industry, everyone knows they provide poor value, but they have a virtual monopoly in critical market segments, so it’s incredibly convenient to use them.

I just gave this fuck $5, not because I like his shit, but because I like how he’s selling his shit. Fuck the skimmers.

Companies, big and small, always try to find a different way to make it a pain in the ass for the legitimate customer and thus rack up the costs in distribution.  DRM is not cheap!   Consumers are easy.   They want easy things.  They don’t want to install a program or be told they can’t put it on their ipod or laptop without logging in on that device that may or may not be connected to anything at all and when you have to start thinking about shit like that the easier alternative is to say fuck it and get a torrent instead.  Those things are free, never come with DRM and you can put it anywhere you want.  

The second (obvious) reason, is that not everything’s worth buying.  I would pay 5 bucks for a Louis CK video in a heartbeat (and I did).   I would not pay 5 bucks for some random comic who may or may not be worth 5 bucks.   I would not pay 5 bucks if Dane Cook made the same easy to download offer.  Nothing political, I just think Dane Cook sucks.  You may replace Dane Cook with any other moderately popular comic that could release something that you don’t like if you prefer, but that’s mine.  

Not everyone needs to drink champagne out of hooker shoes and live in a gold plated mansion.   Most people would be happy just being happy.  

I realize that the studios didn’t make an investment in this film, but that’s beside the point.

There is another assumption that you’re making here, and that is that Louis CK used traditional marketing to draw millions of random eyeballs to his site in the hopes of getting a tiny percentage of them to purchase his product. A more accurate portrayal is one where Louis CK builds a solid fan base over many years and then sets up a web site to sell a recording of one of his shows. Current fans come and buy the show, but they also recommend the show to their friends.  If you can point to all the advertising you seem to be speculating about, that is one thing.

Also, you are suggesting that Louis CK is straight up lying about the figures when he has no reason to do so.

“ I simply wanted an explanation for the artist who does all the right things and gets thrown naked down a mountain made of broken glass with a torrent URL pasted to his face.”
Example?  What artists have followed this model and been driven to bankruptcy (the only real outcome that you could be referring to with your metaphor of the glass shard mountain) due to piracy?