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I never want to hurt butts when I point this out but that's inevitable... it might be hard for a site that takes 6 months to a year for judgements to maintain an active member base. A year is a long time, by the time those judgements come out, people could have either given up with music entirely, or the feedback is irrelevant because they've improved. I would love nothing more than for this community to be large and thriving, and there to be music spilling out of every corner of the site, but that's not the way it's going right now We're all busy and getting old (I'm 28 now) and it's time that we get replaced with the new generation of remixers, but it's harder than ever for them to actually be a part of OCR

Something I'd like to point out here... Yeah, I'm DEF seeing some defeatism here, and while yes I 100% agree that people are busier, complaining about it isn't going to help the problem. My thought process and what it needs is as follows... When I joined, one thing I think people don't remember is that the WIP forum was in a similar state to how it is now. The odd comment but yeah... nothing huge happening. Enter ROZOVIAN - who pretty much single handedly managed to spark some motivation from others because he was so on the ball with wanting to help people. Eventually, the WIP forum had a load of other people critting along with him, and he basically spearheaded a few good years of WIP feedback. He wasn't a mod, he wasn't a judge, he didn't even have a posted mix, but you know, that stuff doesn't matter - all it takes is ONE person to put in the effort and others will follow. Its not me, i'm too busy with other stuff, but this whole "OCR is dead" mentality is probably contributing to this current situation, because "why bother flogging a dead horse", which is what i'm fearing a lot of people are thinking based on some of these responses. All it takes is one person to start doing some reviews and it might kick things up a gear.

It'd be great if more people responding actually focused on those two questions My personal answer to the first question is that I do a writeup for every single mix I've VERY interested in ideas for enhancing feedback & number of reviews.... but here's my current thinking: We upgrade our forums to IPS 4.X We build the workshop out to integrate with the rest of the site We thus allow content creation & promotion on two tracks - the instant gratification, "look what I made" track for anything posted on the workshop AND the featured, canonized track for accepted mixes We automate the submissions process via the forums All of these changes serve to reinforce the forums and the benefits of registering & participating We consider some form of trackable reputation points or awards or whatever for the most active/helpful members who are reviewing content and offering feedback in the workshop forums as well So we WILL be modernizing, quite a bit, and hopefully that WILL help... I sense some defeatism, here, and I can see where it might stem from, but this is when we need people stepping up, not stepping back, because big changes are in store and we'll need all the help we can get to implement them. In the meantime, every review helps!

Just my 2 cents on the why/why not for the reviews. (also not intended as a defeatist rant ) I understand as much as anyone that people put a lot of time and of themselves when committing to learning this art (not the midi-rippers which there seem to be more of now than ever but that's a different subject) and for that reason I've often favored not commenting in the forums out of consideration that my comments might not be taken as constructive by the remixer-to-be and I also know that there are a near infinite amount of ways to approach anything so the last thing I want the person who's work i'm commenting on is to think that I think my way is the only way. There is a lot of self discovery that's needed and if everyone followed one or two mixing engineers to the T (Tee? Ti?) then that would sacrifice any potential for something unique to come out of all that self discovery. Yet, I also am familiar with the environment where students and working professionals were nearly reduced to tears by their instructor/choir director/orchestra conductor/what-have-you because they might have played 2 notes that weren't stylistically correct or used an up-down-up bow pattern when the director wanted a down-down-up bow pattern. I was initially attracted to OCR because it got me away from that into a more stress free environment. Now, with all of this music out there, it's no longer a similar minded group of people who care enough about their art to want to help each other further what they have a mutual love for and instead it's a lot of people who all want praise for their work regardless of how it is and won't take any constructive criticism without getting defensive. Of course I don't feel that this is 100% of the community at all. But it's the reason I mostly just stick to the compos because the attitude of the people competing I find is much better than elsewhere on the forums. I would love it if people understood that to be any kind of an artist it means you have to build yourself up then expect to get torn down REPEATEDLY before your art takes on any worth and I think that people should be encouraged more to speak their minds on the forums here as long as it has a constructive purpose to make the remix better. To echo Brandon's statements about the panel. The length of time it takes for a person to get judged and posted is an issue that extends beyond the trickle of music that gets added to the site but to the social impact it has on the remixers and how the reviews they write are perceived. Once a posted remixer is able to have their work featured and even gain a few fans, suddenly their reviews take on a whole different meaning. Back in 2010 when I first started putting work up in the forums I jumped if someone I knew such as Brandon Strader, Willrock, Darkesword, Avaris, Gario or other posted remixers whose work I enjoyed took time to comment on mine. Even if the comments were harsh they were much easier to take because I was familiar with who they were beyond their name just showing up in the forums. Now we are at a time when most of the remixers from earlier days of OCR have all moved on or are significantly less active than they used to be and the steam that was there for the earlier remixers to get noticed (I believe WIllrock had 10 mixes judged and posted in 2010) is not available to the new up and coming remixers which makes it much more difficult for the community to produce it's own stars. I know the panel is to ensure that people who come by the site are guaranteed a listening experience that would take them hours of searching on Youtube to find but I think we are at the point where the panel is separating itself too much from the community it once created and it's having detrimental effects. Hopefully no one is misreading my intent with this unusually long winded post. The topic IS about the lack of interest in doing reviews which I hope people understand just how it stems from more than one issue. I've loved OCR since I chanced by it during the summer of 2005 and I don't think there is anything that could change that but if we could return the excitement of being a part of the VGRemixing scene to when it peaked between 2010 and 2012, when everything seemed to move a lot faster, than I would be all for that.

Fair use is basically an affirmative defense to copyright infringement. Whether something is fair use or not depends on four factors which are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. These factors include how much of the original work you used, whether the new work is transformative, whether it's a commercial use, etc. You can read more about the factors here. Therefore, whether or not a cover is fair use can't really be said with 100% certainty, but we can make an educated guess as to whether a use would be 'fair' or not based on those four factors. *Generally* speaking, the more transformative a new work is, the more likely it is that the use would be considered 'fair', but again, it really depends. I'd argue that almost any cover of a song is inherently transformative. Before I get into licenses, it's important to understand that there are two copyrights in music: the copyright for the song, and for the sound recording. These are treated differently. When you produce or record a cover or arrangement of a song, provided you didn't use any material from the original sound recording, you're making use of the SONG copyright but not the SOUND RECORDING (SR) copyright. The new sound recording is yours. With that in mind, a mechanical license is necessary to distribute a cover or arrangement because while you have the SR copyright, you don't have the SONG copyright. The term 'mechanical' in this context refers to the distribution of the work via digital / physical media. If you've created a COVER song of a work that has been made available to the public via an album or single release, you can obtain a *compulsory* mechanical license without permission of the copyright holder, as long as royalties are paid. Sites like Loudr.fm can help you with that. But let me pause for a second to say that if you're distributing a cover or arrangement for free, chances are, you'd be covered under fair use. That's how we look at it with OCR. On the other hand, as soon as you start trying to sell that arrangement, you'd better get a mechanical license. Now, "derivative work" is a very specific term. By and large, in this context, it generally refers to the creation of a new work that directly takes from an existing work. The most common usage when talking about music licensing would be creating a sound recording based on an existing sound recording. For example, making a hip hop track using samples from existing songs. There is NO compulsory mechanical license for derivative works. Doing a basic cover is not actually creating a derivative work, but drastically changing a song (changing the "fundamental character", as the law says) might qualify. However, just because something is a DW doesn't mean that it can't also be fair use. Then there's the topic of sync licensing. OK. The right to synchronize a musical work to an audio/visual medium (film, TV, video..) is an exclusive right of the copyright holder. So technically, even if you made a licensed cover song, you would need a separate license to actually sync that cover song to video. BUT, think about the following: Fair use can cover the entire scope of copyright usage. This includes sync. For example, playing clips of a movie while adding critical, educational, or satirical commentary is something done very commonly, and is often considered to be fair use. If you're making a free cover on YouTube, chances are that your use is indeed fair. Also consider that there's a bit of a grey area that most copyright holders don't seem to be sticklers about. By the strictest letter of the law, even a mechanically licensed cover requires a sync license if you were to then create a video and upload it to YouTube. However, I'm not familiar with any cases offhand where a copyright holder - who is being paid mechanical royalties - has taken issue with anyone doing this, provided the video itself is original. The idea of sync licensing tends to be of more concern with for-profit TV shows, movies, ads, and video games, not YouTube, which generates minimal if any profit even for commercial videos. Bottom line: I'd say don't worry about it at all if there's no money involved.

I personally think that when you make music, especially for a non-profit kind of thing like ocr, it's actually really important to see as much reviews as possible to your remix. Not necessarily to improve, but because it can be really motivational to see people like your music. And then not just some "wow, I really like this", but at least a "wow, I really like this, because..." kind of response. My mum says she likes my music, but she can't give as fine a reason as a fellow vgm lover that actually knows what I'm remixing. Seeing people liking your stuff, and besides that also knowing what you're actually doing, is so much cooler than just hearing some random bloke saying he/she likes your mix. And I think that the review panel is a really good place for that kind of thing. As I'm relatively new to this place I don't know how it was in its days of supposed glory, but I do know that right now it isn't really as nice as it could be. But, since I've never left a review myself, I don't really have any right to speak... Although, I think that after reading this topic I just might start doing it.

I thought about that being a possibility... Let's give it a shot, eh?

Thank you for thanking the thanker!

Thanks a lot @ everyone who was /is involved in this project.

Dragonavenger and I are going to play it tonight for a few hours! I am excited! I have already started my arrangement, too!

Been going through a DBZ kick so expect a DBZ claim from me in the not too distant future. Definitely want to do it in a Bruce Falconer style.

28 is "old". Okay there Grandpa Strader, I'll get off your lawn.

Nice, I see by this point you're starting to make greater use of Juggernaut and Damage. For me the production was a bit too distant, but otherwise I liked the action-heavy style you brought for this. (Sidenote: there's a click at 2:46.) One thing I'd say is that you could pay closer attention to how much low end you do get from Damage and Juggernaut; that guitar section towards the end had some low end clutter from those two libraries.

That is very true. Most of the remixes I listen to on here or tried remixing myself are from late 90s or early 2000s games. Games I had as a kid in other words. Lots of the newer games don't have music that is as simple and melodic as the older ones, so it's tough to remix or when remixes of it pop up on the site (like those Dark Souls remixes) I either don't listen because I'm not familiar with it or when I do, I'm not familiar with or passionate enough about the material to really give an in-depth review.

TRAILER!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKBHKD4uwio

I love this game a lot. It's gotten further under my skin than any other game I've ever played. I'm going to be doing a LOT of arranging of this music. The composition of the soundtrack is incredibly tight--every character has a distinct theme, and the themes are woven together so carefully that they actually contain spoilers about the relationship of various characters. My brief cover of the Shop theme is my most popular sound on SoundCloud somehow. Therefore, I'm going to link it's less popular sibling, the YouTube video of the same recording:

But of course! Remixing video game music is how I learned most of what I know. I owe a lot to this community, and I can think of no better way to pay it forward than to just keep at it. Plus, there are still so many game tracks I want to reinterpret.