The earnings on comedian Louis C.K.'s Internet video experiment have hit the big time—$1 million to be exact. But C.K. will not be keeping the riches to himself, pledging to donate at least $280,000 to charity.
On Dec. 10, C.K. offered his one-hour "Live at the Beacon Theater" show for streaming or download for $5, free of any digital rights management (DRM). Initial tallies resulted in a $200,000 profit, but 12 days later, that number has ballooned to seven figures.
C.K. posted a screen grab from his PayPal account online, which showed $1,006,996.17 in available funds.
"That's a lot of money. Really too much money. I've never had a million dollars all of a sudden," C.K. said in a note on his Web site. "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."
C.K. said he will split the funds into four pieces: $250,000 to pay production and Web-related costs; $250,000 for a "big fat bonus" to his staff; $280,000 to charities like The Fistula Foundation, The Pablove Foundation, charity:water, Kiva, and Green Chimneys; and $220,000 for himself.
The groups took to Twitter to thank C.K. for his donation. "Huge thanks to @louisck for his incredibly generous donation," micro-lending organization Kiva said in a tweet. Pablove, which helps pediatric cancer patients, said C.K.'s donation was a "generous surprise."
"That leaves me with 220k for myself. Some of that will pay my rent and will care for my childen," C.K. wrote. "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."
The show is still available online and C.K. pledged to "give more of it away" if he continues to rake in the cash.