His description of why he did it:

To those who might wish to "torrent" this video: look, I don't really get the whole "torrent" thing. I don't know enough about it to judge either way. But I'd just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without "corporate" restrictions.

Please bear in mind that I am not a company or a corporation. I'm just some guy. I paid for the production and posting of this video with my own money. I would like to be able to post more material to the fans in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant for me. So, please help me keep this being a good idea. I can't stop you from torrenting; all I can do is politely ask you to pay your five little dollars, enjoy the video, and let other people find it in the same way.

Sincerely, Louis C.K.

Wow. His simple tone belies the brilliance in his writing here. I seriously doubt he just spent 5 minutes scribbling this out as an afterthought. He gets a few key ideas across:

- he doesn't understand torrenting and so is helpless against it

- he cares about his viewers more than taking advice about DRM

- the video is owned solely by him and not some soulless corporation, and you're directly hurting him by torrenting

- you'll destroy his faith in mankind if you torrent

- five dollars is nothing compared to all that!

All of which combines to make you feel like a huge asshole for even considering pirate bay - in the nicest possible way. This type of thing makes a lot more sense than DRM in his case, and I bet it's a lot more effective too.

You'll never find a politician worth his/her salt taking cash from a company.

The way its done is to push through favorable laws for a company with a wink and a nod, and then come back and work for the company as a consultant/lobbyist with a minimum 1 million dollar per year salary.

Billy Tauzin did this quite well with PhRMA (lobbying group for pharma companies). He headed up the committee which oversees drug companies and led the push to pass the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill which was quite favorable to drug companies. The bill among other things allows drug companies to set an arbitrary price for the drug without Medicare having the option to negotiate on prices.

As soon as the bill was passed he retired from Congress to lead PhRMA with a $2.5 million USD per year salary. Mission complete.

Interesting removal terms. They pretty much force you to admit that you downloaded, whatever they say you downloaded in order to have your data removed. Immediately after having confirmed your real identity via Facebook, of course. They could sell this information to MPAA and RIAA for gold.

The Details:

By submitting a request to have your download activity removed from our database, you are acknowledging that the activity was, in fact, carried out by yourself. This means that you are only submitting a request to have the details of your own personal activity deleted. Any unrecognized activity, such as files you did not download or do not remember downloading, are not — I repeat, are not to be included in your removal request. Why is this imperative? Well, we actually don’t have to explain ourselves...sorry.

The important part is that you understand these terms and conditions before hitting that beautiful button that will erase your criminal back ground, at least for now. Wait, you did remember to read these terms before making the decision to submit a removal request, right? Of course you did, everyone reads the fine print.

Other Important Things to Consider: We make no guarantees that your information will not appear on any other databases. We may have erased your bad behavior but, keep in mind that your data on this site is aggregated public domain. So, if by chance, another sadistic group of people decides to open a similar web site, we have no control over what they do with your information. Furthermore, if you continue to involve yourself in activity like this, your future download history will, without a doubt, appear in our database again and we may not be as nice about it next time.

If any part of these terms is still unclear, please visit your local elementary school and ask to repeat grades 3 through 5.

Remember that the primary power the average HN reader has to fight abuses like this is simply not to work for the companies that engage in this chicanery. Good hackers are valuable, and companies fight for them. When companies do things most hackers consider evil, it should hurt them.