Originally Posted by Jim_Gunn

He was absolutely right. Louis CK has a lot of fans and good will built up only because he is a uniquely talented comedian who was slaving away for so many years working within the existing system of comedy clubs, comedy specials and his tv shows and acting jobs over the years. That coupled with his clever viral marketing campaign, the still relative novelty of direct download model and the publicity it generated are what made his gambit a success.

If you think any significant number of currently working porn chicks are both well known enough in the general populous and clever enough to pull that off you're delusional. 99% of porn stars have a strictly worker bee mentality and will only show up to do some specific sex act or shoot for a certain amount of time and money. Like most young people- hell like most people in general- they need to be told what to do. Doesn't matter how many opportunities may exist to go into business for themselves with webcams or web sites working from the comfort of their own home, it will rarely happen.

Using the power of the internet, viral marketing, crowdfunding, giving away free content to build an audience and other modern techniques including branding bugs as you are so fond of saying, are all legitimate techniques to attract attention and hopefully sales. But it's not going to be indiviudal porn stars or individual musicians doing it. It currently is and maybe soon will be more clever porn companiy owners, web sites or producers taking advantage of those techniques. Other than in a few cases notable only for their being exceptions to the rule does it actually happen like in the well known case of Radiohead's online album release or Louis CKs comedy show. That's why it makes international news each time something like this happens- because it is so remarkable and rarely seen. Your silly Robin Hood like idea of musicians or porn stars disintermediating the record labels or porn studios & sites and selling direct to the fans is a pipe dream.