My Take on the Louis CK Thing.

I am a big fan of “obtaining” free media. That said, I was happy to purchase the Louis CK special. He’s my favorite comedian. Just fucking brilliant. But that’s not why I bought it. I bought it because it was cheap. I bought it because I know he was receiving the profit, not the CEO of some big production company. I bought it because he asked me to. 

If a band I liked offered their CD for download online at the price of $5, I would happily buy it, as well. The reality is, however, that media is overpriced. This is not because of piracy, rather, piracy is because it it. Spending $.99 - $1.30 a song or $20+ for a movie is just ridiculous. There are simply too many hands in the cookie jar. 

I hope this marks a crossroads of how people distribute their material. Louis CK put himself out there, I think, to try to help facilitate this. He proved it can be done successfully, if you have the balls and love for your fans to make it happen. Big companies aren’t going to like it. They have too many people to pay and a few too many people making too much money. It would be nice to see this trend of independent distribution catch one, but I fear the corporate mongrels will try to find a way to stop it. They have a lot at stake and a lot of money to spend towards getting what they want. 

It’s up to us to cast our capitalistic votes.