7 ms·

Monty Python Puts Free Videos Online, Sells 23,000% More DVDs

56 points by nickb 18y ago

sh1mmer 18y ago
I guess this was a good way for Python to reach new and younger audiences that haven't seen their magic before. On a side note I'm somewhat surprised to see gizmodo actually call the MPAA and RIAA "a bunch of pricks". Not that it isn't true.
- unalone 18y ago
  Gizmodo is rarely formal. It's nice at times like this, less nice when they raise damaging rumors like they have in the past. Monty Python shows yet again that they're not just funny, they're very bright and very business-savvy.
  - likpok 18y ago
    IIRC some of them (the pythons) met at Oxford. I think at least one may have a higher degree of some sort.
    - unalone 18y ago
      I wouldn't at all be surprised if that was the case. Beyond degrees, though, they advanced comedy in a lot of ways. In two different parts of my life, Holy Grail and Life of Brian changed my attitude of what comedy was capable of doing. Gilliam's Brazil had a similar effect on me. And John Cleese was one of the best writers of his era. Still would be, though I'm not sure how much he writes nowadays.
vaksel 18y ago
just like everything in life, this will only pay off for the first few. Right now people are willing to pay to reward the artists who are willing to tell the RIAA/MPAA to piss off...but once everyone starts doing it, it'll revert to just the natural sales to the fans etc.
- aardvarkious 18y ago
  But won't that fan base be expanded?
  - unalone 18y ago
    Yeah. It's not a zero-sum game: on the Internet, people can see more and access more, and they can do it quickly and more effectively than they could in the past. So everybody wins.
- snprbob86 18y ago
  I honestly don't think the average, non-technical, sub-intellectual person puts that much thought into these things. What is happening here seems pretty clear to me: People are looking for entertainment, they are finding some on YouTube, they see an ad for more of the same enjoyment, they whip out their credit cards and pay for it. If this story happened in a college dorm room and the entertainment-seeker's roommate had them all on DVD already, he would have said "Here, watch mine." If he had them all on his hard drive, he would have said "here, plug in my external". It seems like people are simply following the path of least resistance.
  - alex_c 18y ago
    > It seems like people are simply following the path of least resistance. I agree 100%, and any discussion of online piracy that does not include this concept is horribly, horribly incomplete.
    - likpok 18y ago
      It's the itunes model all over again. People want media in easy-to-consume form. They want it easy to browse and get. Most will pay a nominal sum for it. Some will not.
vlad 18y ago
The Python language (funny that in this context, I can't just say "Python" on Hacker News) was named after this show.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  So what you're saying is that Guido van Rossum bought most of those DVDs?
  - dimitar 18y ago
    No. The Python programming language is a great advertisement for the show. Especially in areas in which it wasn't aired. I would have never heard of the show if GvR didn't name his language after it. Its said that its named after the TV series in every book about the language, on the website and in Wikipedia.
    - wizard_2 18y ago
      it doesn't help that Python's interactive console is named Idle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDLE_(Python) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDLE_(Python) and they have an IDE named Eric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Python_IDE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Python_IDE
      - likpok 18y ago
        Also spam and eggs are common metasyntatic variables, and references to the pythons in comments is encouraged.
  - vlad 18y ago
    Yes, that's precisely what my point was. Guido spent all of his money on DVD's until he was broke again, just to give himself a great reason to dedicate another 10 years to improving the language, as well as to build the world's greatest Monty Python DVD Rental Library, similar to how Netflix operates, but mailing discs out by hand. This is mentioned in the newest Python 3.0 book.
alaskamiller 18y ago
The real winner out of all of this, day in and day out, is Amazon.
- ivankirigin 18y ago
  I hate owning DVDs. I'd much prefer a file I control or open access to a streaming file I have unlimited authorization to watch. Amazon won't win in the streaming / file space unless something changes.
  - alaskamiller 18y ago
    I believe the sustainable model for media distribution is to micro-charge multiple time for the ability to timeshift and placeshift content. A convenience tax, so to speak. Physical mediums are antiquities in our digital device world. Those eggheads over at YouTube/TiVo/Apple/Amazon/Microsoft surely must be working on something like this. I mean, how else do any of them justify their salaries?
    - unalone 18y ago
      I don't know if "antiquities" is quite the right word. There's always something to be gained from the existence of the physical format. With albums, for instance, there's the artwork and file quality that you can only achieve with records. (It's why new record players are still being made.) Books can achieve things that ebooks cannot. Same with paintings versus photographs, plays versus movies, DVDs versus digital downloads. Better to say that the physical medium is no longer the only existing medium. Where they once dominated, now they'll become niche like most mediums do once they're past cutting-edge. But antique suggests something that's over and done with, and incapable of advancing. On the contrary, I think that physical media will continue to innovate.
      - alaskamiller 18y ago
        They will no longer be used as a means of distribution but rather products or art to appreciate on its own merits for the subculture of people that still obsess about something like that. Cultural artifacts of antiquities.
Mistone 18y ago
"But when you're a bunch of pricks, people go to The Pirate Bay and think of you as the enemy, and then you don't get any money. Take notes, you idiots." v. funny indeed
- unalone 18y ago
  Funny - and so true. There's a working business model online, and people who take advantage of it will most certainly benefit.
  - peterb 18y ago
    The MPAA & RIAA are all about distribution. They want to maintain a lock on content so they (the distributors) make money, not the artists.
    - unalone 18y ago
      I largely agree. I think they're on the decline now. I don't know if whatever follows them will be better, but I'd like to think there's at least a chance.
- alaskamiller 18y ago
  I think this is just geek angst passively breaking out. Why would people care about MPAA or the RIAA except for the passing glances of those acronyms while going through the morning paper or during a movie pre-commercial? It serves them no purpose to care about those organizations unless they're being sued. Mommy dearest doesn't know what Pirate Bay is, much less torrent files. But if you tell her that she can get stuff for free, then by all means she'll jump on the deal. Getting her to think that this is some epic battle between good and evil is just Hollywood fantasy. And quite frankly, this attitude of "oh, I'll just keep stealing until they get it" is just counter-productive.
  - jobeirne 18y ago
    I completely agree. It appalls me to see, day after day, comments on reddit boasting about how the poster continues to steal media to spite these various organizations. Isn't it obvious that when you steal a piece of media, you're stealing from its creator, i.e. the good guy?
zandorg 18y ago
I don't know if many people realise it, but the use of the term 'spam' came from a Monty Python sketch originally. It's not too difficult to correlate what they meant: You can have whatever you want, as long as it's with spam.
- unalone 18y ago
  Spam was a physical food product originating in 1937, before the Pythons existed. Stood for "Shoulder of Pork and Ham". It was a popular product before Monty Python made their joke about it.
  - zandorg 18y ago
    My point was that the Python sketch based on the tinned food turned into the e-mail SPAM meme. The sketch was the basis of the e-mail term, in other words, in computing folklore, by saying that e-mail SPAM comes with everything. I'm not sure if Wikipedia lists it, but you can find this meme explained.
kungfooey 18y ago
When I first scanned this headline I thought it was something about a storefront running on Python selling a whole lot of movies. But, hey, Monty Python > Python.
m0nty 18y ago
I wish people wouldn't say 23,000% when it would be more comprehensible to say 230 x. It's a bit like those submissions to other news sites where they would say 23,000.00% to make the number look even bigger. /hobby horse
- nazgulnarsil 18y ago
  23000% actually means *231
zandorg 18y ago
If I'm not mistaken, the copyright holders aren't Cleese & co - I'd have thought it was the BBC, payed for via the TV license in the 1960's.
queensnake 18y ago
Y'know, Monty Python is special, people love them, and their pitch asks for support. Not everyone who gave up their goods in HQ would see a 230x improvement in sales. So this isn't a good test of the 'give it all away' idea.

56 points by nickb 18y ago

I guess this was a good way for Python to reach new and younger audiences that haven't seen their magic before. On a side note I'm somewhat surprised to see gizmodo actually call the MPAA and RIAA "a bunch of pricks". Not that it isn't true.

unalone 18y ago
Gizmodo is rarely formal. It's nice at times like this, less nice when they raise damaging rumors like they have in the past. Monty Python shows yet again that they're not just funny, they're very bright and very business-savvy.
- likpok 18y ago
  IIRC some of them (the pythons) met at Oxford. I think at least one may have a higher degree of some sort.
  - unalone 18y ago
    I wouldn't at all be surprised if that was the case. Beyond degrees, though, they advanced comedy in a lot of ways. In two different parts of my life, Holy Grail and Life of Brian changed my attitude of what comedy was capable of doing. Gilliam's Brazil had a similar effect on me. And John Cleese was one of the best writers of his era. Still would be, though I'm not sure how much he writes nowadays.

vaksel 18y ago

just like everything in life, this will only pay off for the first few. Right now people are willing to pay to reward the artists who are willing to tell the RIAA/MPAA to piss off...but once everyone starts doing it, it'll revert to just the natural sales to the fans etc.

aardvarkious 18y ago
But won't that fan base be expanded?
- unalone 18y ago
  Yeah. It's not a zero-sum game: on the Internet, people can see more and access more, and they can do it quickly and more effectively than they could in the past. So everybody wins.
snprbob86 18y ago
I honestly don't think the average, non-technical, sub-intellectual person puts that much thought into these things. What is happening here seems pretty clear to me: People are looking for entertainment, they are finding some on YouTube, they see an ad for more of the same enjoyment, they whip out their credit cards and pay for it. If this story happened in a college dorm room and the entertainment-seeker's roommate had them all on DVD already, he would have said "Here, watch mine." If he had them all on his hard drive, he would have said "here, plug in my external". It seems like people are simply following the path of least resistance.
- alex_c 18y ago
  > It seems like people are simply following the path of least resistance. I agree 100%, and any discussion of online piracy that does not include this concept is horribly, horribly incomplete.
  - likpok 18y ago
    It's the itunes model all over again. People want media in easy-to-consume form. They want it easy to browse and get. Most will pay a nominal sum for it. Some will not.

vlad 18y ago

The Python language (funny that in this context, I can't just say "Python" on Hacker News) was named after this show.

biohacker42 18y ago
So what you're saying is that Guido van Rossum bought most of those DVDs?
- dimitar 18y ago
  No. The Python programming language is a great advertisement for the show. Especially in areas in which it wasn't aired. I would have never heard of the show if GvR didn't name his language after it. Its said that its named after the TV series in every book about the language, on the website and in Wikipedia.
  - wizard_2 18y ago
    it doesn't help that Python's interactive console is named Idle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDLE_(Python) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDLE_(Python) and they have an IDE named Eric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Python_IDE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Python_IDE
    - likpok 18y ago
      Also spam and eggs are common metasyntatic variables, and references to the pythons in comments is encouraged.
- vlad 18y ago
  Yes, that's precisely what my point was. Guido spent all of his money on DVD's until he was broke again, just to give himself a great reason to dedicate another 10 years to improving the language, as well as to build the world's greatest Monty Python DVD Rental Library, similar to how Netflix operates, but mailing discs out by hand. This is mentioned in the newest Python 3.0 book.

alaskamiller 18y ago

The real winner out of all of this, day in and day out, is Amazon.

ivankirigin 18y ago
I hate owning DVDs. I'd much prefer a file I control or open access to a streaming file I have unlimited authorization to watch. Amazon won't win in the streaming / file space unless something changes.
- alaskamiller 18y ago
  I believe the sustainable model for media distribution is to micro-charge multiple time for the ability to timeshift and placeshift content. A convenience tax, so to speak. Physical mediums are antiquities in our digital device world. Those eggheads over at YouTube/TiVo/Apple/Amazon/Microsoft surely must be working on something like this. I mean, how else do any of them justify their salaries?
  - unalone 18y ago
    I don't know if "antiquities" is quite the right word. There's always something to be gained from the existence of the physical format. With albums, for instance, there's the artwork and file quality that you can only achieve with records. (It's why new record players are still being made.) Books can achieve things that ebooks cannot. Same with paintings versus photographs, plays versus movies, DVDs versus digital downloads. Better to say that the physical medium is no longer the only existing medium. Where they once dominated, now they'll become niche like most mediums do once they're past cutting-edge. But antique suggests something that's over and done with, and incapable of advancing. On the contrary, I think that physical media will continue to innovate.
    - alaskamiller 18y ago
      They will no longer be used as a means of distribution but rather products or art to appreciate on its own merits for the subculture of people that still obsess about something like that. Cultural artifacts of antiquities.

Mistone 18y ago

"But when you're a bunch of pricks, people go to The Pirate Bay and think of you as the enemy, and then you don't get any money. Take notes, you idiots." v. funny indeed

unalone 18y ago
Funny - and so true. There's a working business model online, and people who take advantage of it will most certainly benefit.
- peterb 18y ago
  The MPAA & RIAA are all about distribution. They want to maintain a lock on content so they (the distributors) make money, not the artists.
  - unalone 18y ago
    I largely agree. I think they're on the decline now. I don't know if whatever follows them will be better, but I'd like to think there's at least a chance.
alaskamiller 18y ago
I think this is just geek angst passively breaking out. Why would people care about MPAA or the RIAA except for the passing glances of those acronyms while going through the morning paper or during a movie pre-commercial? It serves them no purpose to care about those organizations unless they're being sued. Mommy dearest doesn't know what Pirate Bay is, much less torrent files. But if you tell her that she can get stuff for free, then by all means she'll jump on the deal. Getting her to think that this is some epic battle between good and evil is just Hollywood fantasy. And quite frankly, this attitude of "oh, I'll just keep stealing until they get it" is just counter-productive.
- jobeirne 18y ago
  I completely agree. It appalls me to see, day after day, comments on reddit boasting about how the poster continues to steal media to spite these various organizations. Isn't it obvious that when you steal a piece of media, you're stealing from its creator, i.e. the good guy?

zandorg 18y ago

I don't know if many people realise it, but the use of the term 'spam' came from a Monty Python sketch originally. It's not too difficult to correlate what they meant: You can have whatever you want, as long as it's with spam.

unalone 18y ago
Spam was a physical food product originating in 1937, before the Pythons existed. Stood for "Shoulder of Pork and Ham". It was a popular product before Monty Python made their joke about it.
- zandorg 18y ago
  My point was that the Python sketch based on the tinned food turned into the e-mail SPAM meme. The sketch was the basis of the e-mail term, in other words, in computing folklore, by saying that e-mail SPAM comes with everything. I'm not sure if Wikipedia lists it, but you can find this meme explained.

kungfooey 18y ago

When I first scanned this headline I thought it was something about a storefront running on Python selling a whole lot of movies. But, hey, Monty Python > Python.

m0nty 18y ago

I wish people wouldn't say 23,000% when it would be more comprehensible to say 230 x. It's a bit like those submissions to other news sites where they would say 23,000.00% to make the number look even bigger. /hobby horse

nazgulnarsil 18y ago
23000% actually means *231

zandorg 18y ago

If I'm not mistaken, the copyright holders aren't Cleese & co - I'd have thought it was the BBC, payed for via the TV license in the 1960's.

queensnake 18y ago

Y'know, Monty Python is special, people love them, and their pitch asks for support. Not everyone who gave up their goods in HQ would see a 230x improvement in sales. So this isn't a good test of the 'give it all away' idea.