Does Louis C.K.’s Large Profit Actually Mean That Fewer People Are Torrenting His Special?

Here’s an interesting argument that Louis C.K.’s $5 experiment didn’t solve the problem of internet piracy once and for all. It points out that both Google searches for “louis ck torrent” and BitTorrent seeders have shot up after the release of Live at the Beacon Theater, far more than they’ve done for his previous specials (see the graphs below). Certain parts of this argument may be flawed (Google turns up Youtube results before Amazon results pretty frequently, for example), and the changes in search volume are in pretty small numbers, so it’s worth taking with a grain of salt. Still, it’s interesting to consider that all the recent press may have simply meant that more people are buying the special AND more people are torrenting it.

Does Louis C.K.’s Large Profit Actually Mean That […]