Louis CK's download experiment takes $1m

Louis CK has taken over $1million in sales of his online stand-up special,

More than 220,000 fans have paid $5 to download the hour-long Live At The Beacon Theater special, which he recorded and released himself, bypassing the usual DVD channels.

The comedian posted a screenshot of his PayPal account online, showing a balance of just over $1million.

He wrote: ‘So it's been about 12 days since the thing started and yesterday we hit the crazy number. One million dollars. That's a lot of money. Really too much money. I've never had a million dollars all of a sudden, and since we're all sharing this experience and since it's really your money, I wanted to let you know what I'm doing with it.’

He then announced his intention to give away most of the proceeds, giving $250,000 in bonuses to staff and people who worked on the show and $280,000 to charity.

It cost him $250,000 to record the special, set up the website and pay banking fees to handle the transactions – which means he has been left with more than $220,000.

CK added: ‘Some of that will pay my rent and will care for my children. The rest I will do terrible, horrible things with and none of that is any of your business. In any case, to me, 220k is enough out of a million.’

Published: 24 Dec 2011