The whole point is that he IS a millionaire. It wouldn't be surprising if it was some poor college kid putting his work out there for cheap and refusing to treat fans like criminals.
This guy is one of only a few millionaires doing anything remotely like this. And it's important, because we need popular, revenue-generating artists like this to break the backs of the anachronistic, parasitic publishing industry. I hope in ten years -- no, five, maybe less -- this sort of thing is the norm, RIAA and MPAA are just some irrelevant alphabet-soup organizations people have never heard of.
Ask Stephen King what he thinks of the "parasitic publishing industry". You forget that they used to be, and in many cases still are, a good creator's path to fame and wealth. For that they take a portion of the revenue. Same as VCs, same as a lot of things.
If, in 5 years, there are no big publishers, labels or production houses to help artists bring products to market, it will be similar to when there is no VC funding available. Creativity and innovation will be stifled. You will get only the content made by people who also have the wherewithal to distribute it and do a phenomenal job marketing it themselves, who do not need a real budget to do so. There are a lot of good artists who do not fit that description. Try not to wish away their means to an end.
The majority of creation in many fields happen without a promise of getting paid.
Only a tiny minority of authors ever manage to sell their novels. Even a lot of successful published novels only gets out there because of the sheer persistence of the author in question in getting past rejection, not because of writing quality (a favorite anecdote of mine is how John Irving attempted repeatedly to get one of the short stories attributed to the fictional Garp published, only to get rejected over an over; in The World According to Garp, the short story in question was rejected, and John Irving had written a rejection letter for it. In the end he substituted one of the actual rejection letters for it. The short story went on to win a price in its own right)
Only a tiny minority of musicians ever get a record deal.
If anything, the current system is so focused on promoting the "big ones" that a lot of great creative works goes unknown because the big money goes towards building a culture focused on the top few.
It might not be the case in all fields (I happen to like a lot of the expensive effect-laden Hollywood movies, for example, and I have a harder time figuring out how the economics would work for that), but it is most decidedly not a given that creativity and innovation would be stifled in every fields. Some are likely to flourish.
Sure, but the same as your thoughts on expensive movies can be said for many a great album. I know some of my favorites would not be what they are if they had to be self-financed.
Those organizations are lobbying groups representing a clientele. They were never intended to be useful to anyone else. That being said, fair enough on your comments. Let's all hope that financing is still available for bands who want it, and it comes in a form that allows them more control and profit.
These are a couple of things he had to say in his e-mail: "I learned that money can be a lot of things. It can be something that is hoarded, fought over, protected, stolen and withheld. Or it can be like an energy, fueled by the desire, will, creative interest, need to laugh, of large groups of people. And it can be shuffled and pushed around and pooled together to fuel a common interest, jokes about garbage, penises and parenthood."
"...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."
I really wanted to edit out parts of the paragraph above because it looked lengthy. However, it's worth your while to read his perspective. His reasons for doing this esp. from the second quote above are a lot deeper than just promotion.
But let's not pretend Louis C.K. is not a millionaire, because he is, and we're essentially giving him promotion for free.
I'm okay with that, just be aware of what we are doing.
He's not some poor independent artist that needs help to be discovered.