This is an outtake from the special:

So, was Louis C.K. able to make his experiment a success or did the dreaded online pirates swoop in and steal the day?

Judging by Louis C.K’s statement to his fans concerning the sales of the special, the experiment was mostly successful.

“The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.”

Judging by the statement, it sounds like he’s pleased with the results up to this point. It is interesting to note he would have made more money simply releasing his special the traditional way. Making his special DRM-free does leave his product more susceptible to pirating, so does Louis C.K. have any worries from that aspect? On the purchase page, he makes a statement to those who plan to torrent the video:

To those who might wish to “torrent” this video: look, I don’t really get the whole “torrent” thing. I don’t know enough about it to judge either way. But I’d just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without “corporate” restrictions.

Sincerely,
Louis C.K.

I’ve been venturing to various torrent sites to see how the response has been, or if there is an actual torrent up for the special. I have found a couple, and there was interesting conversation unfolding on one of them. Users were arguing to have the torrent taken down from the site to support Louis C.K, while others dropped in to say they paid their $5 and were trying to get others to do the same.

“dude… read this (referencing Louis C.K.’s note to torrenters).. and take this torrent down.. you didnt put this up to make people buy it… seriously, lets not fool ourselves.. take it down.. someones trying to do the right thing, and you are stabbing them in the back”

“seriously though people; buy this thing, even if you can get it for free — if Louis can actually generate a profit from this it will encourage other comedians to do the same and it means they won’t have to go through HBO or Comedy Central to do their specials and in the end we will end up getting more frequent releases at cheaper prices…c’mon folks, it’s only $5!”

“If this torrent was not here , i would have (no) idea that he was doing this deal. We all love our torrents and he knew that it would end up here. Thanks for this torrent am 200% behind you posting it here. I paid my money because of this torrent and for all those who moan its slow , cant you wait an extra 20mins? stop being greedy.”

The support for Louis C.K’s distribution model and the back-and-forth argument over the torrent being available is unlike anything I’ve seen on a torrent site. It goes to show that while people who do pirate material are stealing, they are willing to pay if they aren’t feeling ripped off.

To help make a push for the video, Louis C.K. conducted a reddit interview which yielded some interesting comments from the comedian. In particular, he talks about how this experiment has been all about learning.

Professionally, I’m learning right this minute, a HUGE amount with this web experiment. this live at the beacon thing (available at httlp://www.louisck.com for 5 bucks) is like that thing in the movie “Twisiter” where they send a bunch of little data collecting balls up into a tornado and just download the lovely results. The whole things has been like that. From the moment it went online and i saw the result of every decision i made.

It’s interesting to discover he has so little knowledge of torrenting, online distribution, when this is one of the most genius ideas I’ve seen in quite awhile. It goes to show if you treat people with respect, offer them a quality product at a reasonable price, and don’t handcuff them with restrictions, they’ll respond positively. I’ve bought the special, and if you want to laugh and be amazed for a hour or so then it’s definitely worth the $5.

That’s why video game developer Croteam and their approach to DRM regarding the Serious Sam 3 sequel/prequel is so awesome. Instead of cutting off access to previously-purchased files, if the game has been pirated, the person playing the pirated copy is going to have some DRM issues to deal with, but it won’t be like any DRM enforcement that’s been seen before.

Instead of denying access to the pirated copy, the game-playing pirate is going have to deal with an indestructible enemy that chases them around for as long as they are playing their unlawful copy. There’s even video of the DRM enemy in action, and besides looking very effective, the enemy itself is a creepy looking arachnid/scorpion and it moves very, very quickly:

First, a reader who goes by pakoito says:

That happens the third time you reload because the cracked game crashes every 5 minutes, o’clock.

User Ascense offers this perspective:

I’m guessing the game code adds the scorpion to the game by default, and the file checks disable the scorpion. When the game gets cracked, most likely it’s done by changing all file checks to no-ops, in witch case the code that prevents the scorpion from spawning, is also removed. So unless you modify the executable by removing the drm-check code, you won’t have any issues wrt the scorpion…

Aside from that, however, there idea of an indestructible DRM monster has some people wanting to try to the pirated copy, just for a chance to fight the creature. Just ask reader ninjapirate:

Perhaps they could sell the pirated version as a collector’s edition?

What about you? Do you think this is an effective way to police your digital files, or is EA’s “slash and burn all access” the way to go? Let us know what you think.

Engagdet has a look at a "mystery HTC Windows Phone 7 device". "A candybar slate from HTC with a 3.7-inch SLCD and 1GHz Snapdragon processor — sounds about right for the Desire, but this little puppy is actually running Windows Phone 7 (presumably a developer build, given the apps catalog)," the publication reports. "According to our tipster, the three buttons under the screen are touch-sensitive à la Nexus One, the camera boasts 8 megapixels of memory retention, and the "hardware is ready." It apparently lacks HTC Sense.

According to Bloomberg, AOL is looking for an executive to lead its music business, with the help of recruiting firm Spencer Stuart.

Apple announced that the iPhone 4 will be made available in 17 more countries starting Friday. This news comes while LG has suggested iPad international expansion could be temporarily hampered.

Rackspace and NASA have teamed up on an open source cloud project called OpenStack.

McAfee will uses its policy-based data classification with Adobe’s policy-based document protection to allow organizations to secure business information such as intellectual property or regulatory compliance data.

Gerhard Watzinger, McAfee
General Manager Data
Protection Business Unit

"We are excited about the potential that this partnership can bring to our joint customers and partners," said Gerhard Watzinger, general manager of McAfee’s data protection business unit.

"Both McAfee and Adobe serve millions of consumers and the world’s largest enterprises. By combining our efforts in the way information is handled and secured, our customers’ data will be better protected."

As part of the partnership, McAfee is making its free diagnostic tool, McAfee Security Scan, available as an optional download to users installing Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player software. The tool allows users to check for anti-virus software and firewall protection on their computers.

When the scan is finished, users see a report detailing the presence and status of security protection.

More details about the partnership will be announced at McAfee’s upcoming security conference FOCUS 09, taking place next month in Las Vegas.

"At Adobe, our goal is to provide our customers with the most effective and reliable means to securely collaborate and exchange information," said, Kumar Vora, vice president and general manager for LiveCycle at Adobe.

The move comes after Amazon deleted customers copies of George Orwell’s "Animal Farm" and "1984" without notice. Amazon says the titles were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have the rights to them and it removed the copies at the request of the publisher from both its Kindle store and users personal electronic readers.

The online petition currently has more than 1,400 signatures including those of free software advocate Richard Stallman, Creative Commons and Change Congress co-founder Lawrence Lessig and Harvard law professor John Palfrey.

"The freedom to read without supervision or interference is central to a free society," said FSF executive director Peter Brown.

"When ebook products like the Kindle use DRM to restrict what users can do with their books, that is a clear threat to the free exchange of ideas."

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos apologized for the error in a Kindle Community forum post. "This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our ‘solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles."

The Kindle terms and conditions state digital content is licensed to the user, but not owned by them.

"Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon."

Recent by comments by Microsoft executives have led to speculation that Microsoft may abandon the Zune.

Microsoft CEO Ballmer declared at CES that consumers increasingly were moving away from one task devices like the Zune towards smart phones while at the same time stating flatly that no Zune phone was in the works.

Microsoft president of the Entertainment and Devices Division Robbie Bach told the press, "We have already started to see some flattening and even declining in the stand-alone MP3 player market. I think you’ll see that continue. As phones get more capable, as battery life gets better, people’s desire to have their music with them along with their phone is certainly going to go up."

There are so many forseeable holes in this plan that its hard to take seriously. In fact, the common reaction to the site has been one of questioning the story’s legitmacy. For example, "It isn’t April 1st yet," states Digg user, SnowBladerX (a comment that has 18 diggs itself at the time of this writing).

For one, how do you know the mp3s being sold were not illegally downloaded? For two, how can you sell a file for a fraction of the cost that record companies are requiring retailers like iTunes and Amazon to sell it for? There is the argument that people sell CDs when they could have easily shoplifted them or burned themselves a copy, so when you look at it that way, it’s not much different. Except that the record companies have been far more concerned with illegal downloading than they have with shoplifted CDs. And you know this is an industry that will not hesitate to put up a fight whether justified or not.

"The logic behind it is that it’s legal to sell on a CD you’ve bought – so why can’t you do the same with a music file? In case you haven’t spotted it yet, the difference is that when you sell a CD, you don’t get to keep an identical copy of it for yourself. Which is probably a point that the record labels and their lawyers are making right now,"  Tom Phillips at The Ridiculant writes. "That’s unless, of course, Bopaboo have some special software that reaches onto your computer and deletes your files for you, in which case we can’t see many people flocking to use it."

Call me skeptical, but I don’t see this one panning out too well for the owners of Boparoo. It’s an interesting concept, but how often do you see anything Internet-music related get by without a struggle with the recording industry? Good luck with that one.

1. THEY CAN’T -  Some labels hate Steve Jobs so much that they want to give competitors the DRM free edge.
2. THEY DON’T HAVE TO – Sales at iTunes continue to grow.  Why make the switch?
3. THEY DO WANT TO -  Jobs wants to control to keep the Appple iPod iPhone iTunes ecosystem as closed as possible as long as possible. After all, it helps sell stuff.

Whatever the reason, it would seem that Apple is doing a disservice to its customers; though rising sales would suggest that they are satisfied. Why do you think iTunes has not gone DRM-free?

Comments

Sure, there will still be the "vinyl is better" argument for some, but for those in the mainstream that haven’t purchased vinyl since the late 80s, are they ready to give up CDs? They take up space, collect dust, and get scratched. Why do we need them?

Apple’s applications, which will kick off with an upcoming release from Snow Patrol in October, will not only provide content like what would be found in a CD booklet, but also interactive elements such as those found on enhanced CDs, according to Matt Hartley at theglobeandmail.com. So really, you’re getting all the benefits of a booklet, plus content that couldn’t be found in one.

That all sounds good, but questions revolve around age-old DRM-type issues. Is this going to be just an Apple thing? These applications from the Apple App Store are for use with iPhones and iPod Touches. What about other players?

"Kudos to Apple and Polydor [Snow Patrol's record label] for pushing the envelope," says Hypebot’s Bruce Houghton. "But if labels allow Steve Jobs to control content delivery vehicle then only iPhone and iTouch users will experience all that an artist is trying to convey.  New album cover applications must be multi-platform and open source or the music industry risks a repeat of Apple’s pre-mp3 stranglehold on music sales."

It will be interesting to see where this goes. Perhaps a new standard will evolve from this, and we will finally move on from CDs entirely. Though I’ll probably have my old ones until I’m dead and gone. I still have cassette tapes in the back of my closet somewhere.