Monty Python Videos on Youtube Lead to 23,000% DVD Increase

[RoyGBiv]

Subtitle: The MPAA can bite me.

Following up on our previous news regarding Monty Python material on iTunes, Mashable is now reporting on a staggering increase of Monty Python DVDs sold on Amazon soon after the Python crew made some of their their more popular material free on Youtube. And by staggering, I mean 23,000% worth. Mashable notes that Monty Python’s DVDs climbed to the #2 spot on Amazon’s Movie’s and TV Bestseller List, and you don’t have to be a genius to follow that the sales were probably influenced by the Amazon links found on all of their Youtube clips.

When launching their massive Youtube effort, Monty Python made their intentions fairly clear:

“We’re letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there! But we want something in return. None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years.”

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/01/23/free-monty-python-videos-on-youtube-lead-to-23000-dvd-sale-increase/

For those that don't know, Monty Python clips have been available on YouTube as long as YouTube has been around, but the quality has generally sucked, and many of those clips have been subjected to take-down notices. Well, the Pythons, who have had the good fortune to maintain control over much of their catalog, got a new idea. Let's offer it for free, in our typically Python-esque way, and see what happens.

Well, this is what happened.

The MPAA/RIAA, et al can bite my multi-hued ass.

[supernova]

1. My love for those guys grows and grows!

:loveya:

Someday I will be able to afford their catalogue. I promise.

[Mnemosyne]

2. Brilliant marketing from brilliant group! Thanks Roy! n/t

:hi:

[JenniferJuniper]

3. When your material is as great as their material is...

exposure can only be a good thing. I suspect many of the people watching the clips on youtube are youngsters and there is nothing so good for sales as a perpetual fan base.

[RoyGBiv]

6. That being the point ...

*Good* material will sell.

Crappy material ... eh, we might watch it for free on allusee, but we ain't shelling out $20 for the DVD.

This result, while it certainly wouldn't always be typical, undermines the RIAA/MPAA's entire point, which is not a point at all. What they really want, what all media conglomerates and the congress-critters and judges that support them actually want, is total control over what, how, where, and to whom information is distributed.

It takes the stature of the Pythons to point out how full-of-poo they are.

[Lucinda]

4. Smart, smart, smart of them! There is a whole new audience out there.

And I love that it flies in the face of MPAA/RIAA, et al!

[stubtoe]

11. They've always had that subversive streak, which I love.

Good on 'em

[Tyrone Slothrop]

5. This article is kind of BS

I purchased two Monty Python box sets from Amazon in December -- and neither of them had a thing to do with YouTube.

Amazon dropped the price of the MP box set from $100 down to less than $50. (And I see they are still selling it at 42% off.) I purchased two (one for me, one for my brother) simply because they were too cheap not to. There's no evidence that YouTube had anything to do with it -- and I note that the original article doesn't mention the decrease/sale price.

[RoyGBiv]

8. But it's free on YouTube!

Why would you buy it at all. NO ONE would buy it if it were free!

But anyway, yes, there's not a really good article about it out there, and it's noted in the article that the campaign was "part" of the reason the sales took off. And it is. Amazon is getting a lot of click-thrus from YouTube. (Wonder why there's not a good article. Strange that the media isn't reporting something like this. Very strange.)



Your individual experience are individual.

[Staph]

7. Baen Books has been doing something similar since 2000.

To quote from the Baen Free Library ( http://www.baen.com/library ) and their First Librarian, Eric Flint,

There was a school of thought {concerning free books available online -- Staph}, which seemed to be picking up steam, that the way to handle the problem was with handcuffs and brass knucks. Enforcement! Regulation! New regulations! Tighter regulations! All out for the campaign against piracy! No quarter! Build more prisons! Harsher sentences!

Alles in ordnung!

I, ah, disagreed. Rather vociferously and belligerently, in fact. And I can be a vociferous and belligerent fellow. My own opinion, summarized briefly, is as follows:

1. Online piracy — while it is definitely illegal and immoral — is, as a practical problem, nothing more than (at most) a nuisance. We're talking brats stealing chewing gum, here, not the Barbary Pirates.

2. Losses any author suffers from piracy are almost certainly offset by the additional publicity which, in practice, any kind of free copies of a book usually engender. Whatever the moral difference, which certainly exists, the practical effect of online piracy is no different from that of any existing method by which readers may obtain books for free or at reduced cost: public libraries, friends borrowing and loaning each other books, used book stores, promotional copies, etc.

3. Any cure which relies on tighter regulation of the market — especially the kind of extreme measures being advocated by some people — is far worse than the disease. As a widespread phenomenon rather than a nuisance, piracy occurs when artificial restrictions in the market jack up prices beyond what people think are reasonable. The "regulation-enforcement-more regulation" strategy is a bottomless pit which continually recreates (on a larger scale) the problem it supposedly solves. And that commercial effect is often compounded by the more general damage done to social and political freedom.

Baen has discovered that free books available online causes increased sales of the hardcover and paperback versions of the same books. And having the first (or first several) books of books series causes increased sales of the entire series, not just the online book. Pretty cool stuff!

[Greyhound]

9. I'm gratified to hear this. When the RIAA first went after Napster, a Los Angeles marketing guy

was famous for a short time for telling them what a huge mistake it was.

He said, "This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life, we have over a hundred thousand customers in the same place, at the same time, with the same interests, and instead of taking advantage of it, these assholes decided to alienate them, fragment them, and drive them underground. We'll never get another opportunity like this again."

[RoyGBiv]

10. And he was right ...

I don't care what is done at this point. The media industry as a whole missed a massive opportunity. All that is done now is patchwork. The Pythons (and many others) "get it" but they have to fight against what is still the industry mainstream. On the other end, a network of pirates and file-sharers have set up systems far, *far* superior to the distribution networks of the people who own the content. That's just wrong, but it's the way it happened because of those assholes. It'll stay that way until the industry as a whole gets smart and hires these people do revamp their own distribution networks.

And lest it be lost amidst the shuffle, what this is really about is controlling information, not just entertainment, which explains somewhat why that huge marketing opportunity was ignored. That nonsense about streaming the inaugural only on systems that could use Microsoft Silverlight.

[Greyhound]

12. This is what big corporations do, stifle innovation and withhold access to grab

some bucks. They are monuments to 19th century authoritarianism that we just haven't recognized as the aberrations they are yet. Silverlight is an excellent example, as if Adobe hadn't screwed up flash enough.

Just as porn has driven the technical innovation of the web, because of it's "outsider" status, we will continue to see innovation come out of the minds of individuals and small independent groups (Linus Torvalds, Dan Farmer, Steve Gibson, and the like). People with an idea and no hierarchy over them to tell them they can't.

[jobendorfer]

14. Ah, the "sue your customers to profitability" strategy ...

Akin to the Judean People's Front Crack Suicide Squad, methinks.

[FloridaJudy]

13. I used to buy quite a few CDs

After I'd downloaded a free song from Amazon. I liked the artist enough to want the rest of his/her work.

I've noticed that the free offerings from Amazon have gotten rather stingy of late: this strikes me a a very counterproductive move on their part.

[JHB]

15. So that would be...

Nay-sayers lose to Nii-sayers?

[yodermon]

16. ba DUM bump.

crash.

[Azooz]

17. The Monty Python YouTube Channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/MontyPython

Argument Clinic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y

Also check out their old radio show "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again"

[Reverend_Smitty]

18. youtube and the much maligned bit torrents have lead me to buy many dvds

especially of British programs. I'd catch a clip or two of a show that doesn't air in this country on youtube, track down a few episodes to download and eventually buy the set on DVD (if available in region 1). I've bought DVDs of at least 10 shows that I never would have even seen in the first place if the internet didn't exist. I know it's anecdotal but I do pay for quality...and yes I do own the Monty Python set, it's amazing