Just a few months after British comedy troupe Monty Python put all of its material free on youtube, mashable.com is reporting that sales of Monty Python DVDs sold on Amazon, have increased 23,000%. Mashable notes that Monty Python’s DVDs climbed to the #2 spot on Amazon’s Movie’s and TV Bestseller List.The Python crew knew what they were doing. In launching the youtube channel, they said, “We’re letting you see absolutely everything for free. 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.”Devindra Hardawar, writing on slashfilm.com, makes an interesting observation about this success:“Could it be, despite all of the [recording industry’s] clamoring about piracy killing their business, that free and less restrictive content is actually the answer to their woes? We’ve seen other entertainment artists have similar success with free content… Offering a certain amount of content for free (as we see on Hulu, Last.FM, and countless other sites and services) seems like one of the best ways to convince consumers to actually pay for media.”
First, a youtube channel, and now a social networking site for Monty Python, the 1970s -1980s British comedy-troupe.According to Bouglas Quenqua, writing in The New York Times:Pythonline.com, a social network and digital playground, offers clips of old material that people can use to make mash-ups, perhaps inserting their own pet in the killer-rabbit scene from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” The home page has a blog format with news about the surviving Pythons; elsewhere there are chat boards and e-mail forums. Membership is free.
From Lifehacker:"Claiming to be tired of seeing poor-quality "rip-offs" of their ridiculously acclaimed TV series and films, the Monty Python troupe has created an official YouTube channel to post free, high-quality clips from their vaults, with only Amazon merchandise links for advertising."
