Yet another way to cover live events

Louis CK made a lot of money and made a lot of fans happy by producing his own video of a recent comedy show and distributing it on the Internet.

This evening, Bill O'Reilly vs Jon Stewart will be on stage at George Washington University for a political/comedy show.  If you can't or don't want to be there, you can still watch it on the Internet.

Nox Solutions will stream the event on the Internet, and for $4.95 this is what you get:

• You can stream the event up to three times, including the live stream
• After that, you can watch it on demand (for a limited time)
• You get a downloadable audio (mp3) file or downloadable high-definition video file (H.264 encoded in an MP4 container), which will be available at a later date. 
• You can watch it on any phone, tablet or computer and on your TV if you have a Roku, Google TV, Apple TV, etc.

They ask that you not redistribute and half the profit goes to charity.

You see the event where and when ever you want for $4.95.  Does that sound good to you? What other events would you like to see given similar terms?

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More versions are now available for download or streaming -- 240p, 360p, 540p, 720p and 1080p. The file sizes are 238 MB, 548 MB, 882 MB, 1.8 GB and 3.4 GB respectively. It seems like they could have produced the hi-def version faster, but in the case of an entertainment event like this, waiting a few days is not a problem. (They will improve their work flow and get hi-def versions out faster in the future).

Louis CK goes direct to the consumer on the Internet

Comedian Louis CK is distributing a high quality, DRM-free recording of a recent concert on the Internet.

After four days, he has sold 110,000 copies at $5 each

After deducting production, Web site and transaction costs, he has a profit of around $200,000 (so far). He says that is less than he would have made had a large record company produced the video, but the public is getting more this way:

• They are paying $5, not $20 for a CD.
  
• They can make all the copies they want to.
  
• They can watch it on any device they have access to.
  
• It is not restricted internationally.
  
• The record company does not have their personal information for marketing purposes.
  

There has been some piracy -- you can get it for free using Bit Torrent -- but clearly many people prefer the convenience and karma of a purchase. Louis CK points out that the concert is all new material, which to him is life-and-death intellectual property, and he reserves the right to go back to a record company in the future. I hope he doesn't.

<aside to Louis>
Louis, don't forget that this is only the first four days of sales. You have also gotten a ton of favorable publicity -- I must admit that I had never even heard of you before this and now I am going to buy the video. You also learned a lot about producing concert videos and Internet marketing, so you will have better margins on the next one.
</aside to Louis>

This is a cool example of Internet going around the (fat) middle man. Even if you don't buy the video, you should read Louis CK's insightful, humorous summary of the deal.