Comedian Louis CK has proved a point: People are willing to pay a reasonable amount of money for DRM-free content from a performer they love, even though it would be trivial for them to pirate the same content for free.

Twelve days ago, Louis CK decided to skip the distribution, DRM, ads and everything else that goes into marketing and sale of a video, and simply offer the video of his latest performance on his website for $5.

It took 4 days for Louis to earn $200,000, and another 8 days to earn a whopping $1 million.

"The experiment was: If I put out a brand new standup special at a drastically low price ($5) and make it as easy as possible to buy, download and enjoy, free of any restrictions, will everyone just go and steal it? Will they pay for it? And how much money can be made by an individual in this manner?" explained Louis in a statement shortly after the video earned its first $200,000.

Obviously, people do respect this approach, as proven by Louis's success and similar experiments by Radiohead and others in the past.

In his latest statement Louis promised to give part of the money to various charities and another part to his employees as a bonus, keeping only $220,000 for himself.







All of the buzz surrounding the video didn't come out of nowhere: Louis has promoted it through various social media channels, including Twitter and Reddit. It's hard to say how easy it would be for someone — even Louis himself — to duplicate this success. His experiment proves, however that people are willing to pay for content if you communicate with them openly, shed the DRM and keep the price low.