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The purpose of this thread is to give people a clear idea of how OCR operates, how revenue is generated (and where that revenue goes), and the relationship between OCR, its operations, and the people that contribute to it. Is content on OCR licensed? No. We do not license the ReMixes distributed on our site (and through channels like YouTube). (There is one exception, which is described below.) Why aren't the remixes licensed? It's simply impossible to do this for several reasons. 1. Mechanical licensing via the compulsory licensing permission (the one that does not require publisher permission) requires that the source material be published commercially in the United States prior to licensing. Many remixes on the site are of source material never released in soundtrack form in the US, therefore they cannot be licensed. 2. Even if the music could be licensed, since OCR is founded on the concept of distributing music for free, it would be impossible to support the massive licensing costs necessary for all remixes on the site. To use some napkin math: assume 3400 remixes are each downloaded 100 times per month, which is a gross under-estimate. At 9.1 cents per copy downloaded, this would require licensing fees of over $30,000 a month - for downloads alone. 3. No established license mechanism could cover free downloads of MP3s and ad-supported streaming. Compulsory mechanical licensing only covers downloadable copies; as a result, custom licensing agreements would need to be made with every publisher (which they could simply reject, unlike a compulsory license.) For total emphasis, there is no conceivable way that the content on OCR could be licensed, and especially not while remaining compatible with the site goal of distributing free music. Does that mean OCR is illegal or infringing copyright? By default, any use of copyrighted material without express permission of the copyright holder is considered infringement. However, US copyright law makes provisions for "fair use" of copyrighted material as a defense to infringement in a court of law. Fair use is the legal principle that allows for things like educational usage, commentary, parody, and satire, among other uses. While fair use cannot be established except in a court of law, and there are no strict guidelines allowing anyone to decide whether a use is fair or not outside of the court system, it's possible to make an educated guess as to whether a use is fair or not. This educated guess is based on an evaluation of the factors evaluated for determining fair use, and precedent. The biggest of these factors are whether a work is transformative, and whether it is 'commercial'. These are both loose and nebulous terms, but that being said, our strongly-held belief (reinforced by the belief of consulted legal counsel) is that OCR's distribution of fan-created arrangements for non-commercial educational purposes is fair use. This has been discussed at length in other posts but suffice it to say that when analyzing all these factors, we've made a very strong case for this if a court case were ever to happen. Isn't it worse to upload music to YouTube, especially if it's monetized? No. If fair use applies to OCR's activities, it would certainly extend to YouTube. If it doesn't apply, then the site's current activities (on and off YouTube) would be considered infringement, in which case it's a moot point. YouTube is actually a better place to address issues of infringement than elsewhere, because Google provides content creators with several tools: the ability to claim a video (which grants the publisher/claimaint all further revenue from the video) or issue a takedown. Both of these would not entangle either party in the court system, as Google/YouTube mediates any disputes, avoiding a costly legal battle. In short, we'd much rather defend ourselves to YouTube, ON YouTube, with the assistance of YouTube specialists who have extensive experience in copyright disputes. Also, keep in mind that on YouTube (and off), a creator can claim infringement regardless of whether someone is generating revenue from a work or not. My own personal experience with YouTube claims and takedowns has exclusively been with un-monetized videos. In short, if a publisher took issue with OCR, not running YouTube ads would not protect us in any way. Does OCR generate revenue from its content? Yes. Since the early 2000s, ocremix.org has run ads throughout the site. Other revenue is generated from sales of OCR merchandise (not music; music on the site is not sold commercially) such as t-shirts and hoodies. Within the last few years, OCR launched a Patreon page which also generates revenue. Ads were also enabled on <1% of videos on OCR's YouTube channel from June-August 2016 for testing purposes, which has also generated a small amount of revenue. Until OCR officially becomes a registered non-profit organization, and YouTube ads are discussed further with the community, YouTube ads will only be served on the videos of ReMixers who have given OCR their explicit permission. Why does OCR need to generate revenue? OCR as a website has technical costs, such as the cost of a dedicated server, mirrors, and bandwidth. These expenses are necessary for the basic operation of the site. Revenue is also needed to create promotional materials for the site: that includes merchandise like t-shirts and hoodies, as well as strictly-promotional physical copies of album projects. (These promotional physical albums are not sold, and the content on them is available for free on ocremix.org. They are given away at conventions). OCR has also been attending conventions such as Otakon, MAGFest, and PAX (among any others) to evangelize video game music, promote recent album releases, and give away free stuff. Expenses directly related to OCR panels at these conventions (such as technical equipment needed for panels) are sometimes covered by OCR as an organization. There are also many plans for the organization that require revenue to achieve. For example, the OCR YouTube video template has not been updated in many years and looks dated. We're in the process of commissioning custom visualization software to produce better-looking videos strictly for the enjoyment of viewers and fans. Also, we're looking to obtain true non-profit organization status, which we believe will take a substantial amount of money to file and maintain properly. Where does surplus revenue go? For a long time, there was no surplus revenue. Expenses were often paid out of pocket by Dave and other staff. Now that revenue is exceeding expenses, the revenue... isn't going anywhere. It's staying in OCR's accounts until it is used for purposes like those described above. The aforementioned non-profit filing process will likely take most if not all saved money. So is OCR a non-profit organization? From our submission agreement: OCR legally cannot distribute submitted materials for for-profit endeavors. Furthermore, OCR is legally bound to spend any revenue on costs directly associated with operation and promotion of OverClocked ReMix. However, OCR as an entity does not have true non-profit status - 501(c)(3) - which is why achieving that official status is a major goal. Are any ReMixers or site staff paid for their work? No. Nobody has been paid for their work contributing to the site either as a remixer, staff member, or administrator, djp included. (Fine print: OCR has released one commercial album, For Everlasting Peace: 25 Years of Mega Man, as an officially licensed release in partnership with Capcom, with Capcom retaining ownership of the music. ReMixers were paid for this release, which was licensed directly with the publisher. This music is not available on the site and was not submitted through the normal channels, so it's an outlier.) Will ReMixers ever be paid? Not for regular submissions to the site, which are distributed for free. Not only would the logistical overhead be unmanageable, but it would invalidate our fair use case, as it would be impossible to justify those payments as necessary to the direct operation of the site as a non-profit entity. However, we'll continue to explore separate licensed projects like MM25, or officially licensed commercial albums through our sister site OverClocked Records. We view these as separate from the core work that OCR does: distributing and evangelizing free music. Will site staff ever be paid? There is absolutely no plan to do this, nor has it been seriously discussed among site staff in all years of operation. It's conceivable that it could happen someday, after 501(c)(3) status is achieved and we're complying with all regulations for transparency, corporate bylaws, etc. djpretzel wants there to be a plan for the site should anything ever happen to him, and operating a 501(c)(3) will require more administrative duties for things like bookkeeping and accounting. Again, if it were to ever happen, it would be executed properly to the letter as per federal guidelines for non-profit organizations and in full compliance with our own legally binding submission agreement. Is there anything to prevent revenue from being distributed as profit to staff now?! Of course. Just because OCR is not a 501(c)(3) yet does not mean our submission agreement isn't legally binding: it is. And that agreement, which applies to OCR as an organization, strictly limits how revenue can be used. Again, site staff have never been paid nor are there any plans to do so.

What he was saying is that it doesn't make a difference whether it's "just a few samples here and there" or more prolific use; the company can still find it objectionable even if it's "just a little bit" and be in their right to claim on it, like you said.

Will also add that if you still have questions about ad revenue or other concerns that you don't feel were answered fully, zircon wrote up an FAQ that we've reviewed detailing everything to the best of his ability. Feel free to ask questions and continue the discussion there.

I'm going to close this thread up. A spirited discussion to be sure, but @djpretzel indicated what the next steps are going to be for OCR with regards to shifting ads over to YouTube. I don't think it's healthy for us to sit around and do a post-mortem of the arguments/discussion. Let's get back to talking about video games, music, and video game music.

Ha! Thought I had that one for sure. Grats on breaking my streak, Kat.

This is a great piece of Gothic orchestral music and is certainly very epic. I really like this one and hope the remixer continues to make more like it. I've never played Dark Souls or Bloodbourne but I might check it out ...

OCRemix continues to delight. Would never have found this type of music, or this artist, without it. With a piece like this - which sounds like it belongs in the climactic end of a major movie production - I felt like I was exploring a dark castle with a flickering lantern whose light failed to penetrate the unnatural darkness all around me. Gorgeous. I'll be checking out the original work of the artist immediately. I don't know anyone else who provides ambience like this. Tremendous.

Well... it shouldn't. But Square Enix has specifically objected to using their samples in the past, so OCR does not permit their use in accepted remixes. What individual game publishers might or might not find objectionable is entirely up to them.

The only thing embarrassing was how you handled yourself here. You have a historical pattern of this, and I am personally done with it.

I have to call this out. What total bullshit this statement is. You started this, which ultimately I think was a good thing because it got the ball rolling on some good things, but you set the angry and accusatory tone right from post #1 and maintained it for 14 pages of thread. We are all getting too old for this. Are you even serious? Dave began providing solid, undeniable answers right from the start. You continued screaming. They are pissed at you because you made incredibly insulting and darn-near libel-worthy accusations claiming you had actual evidence. You dragged OCR and Dave specifically through the mud, and not just here. Whatever. You need to clean up your act in a very big way. You had Dave on the border of insanity yesterday and I'm REALLY not ok with that. I'm sorry but this just needs to be said.

First things first, I'd like to thank everyone who's come forward with their support for the site & staff, in spite of the toxic way this has been introduced by non-staff and the accusations that have accompanied it. It means a lot. As the father of two amazing daughters, the only way I can justify spending time on OCR and not with them is when I'm doing work that speaks to me, releasing kick-ass mixes & albums, and making the site & community stronger behind the scenes. This isn't that... this is dealing with a small contingent spreading bad faith accusations, paranoia, misunderstandings, and in some cases belligerence. As an adult, I realize that leadership DOES involve dealing with those types of things as well, but as a father of young children it is VERY hard to use my limited free time for this... If you've been reading closely, you'll recall that our limited "trial run" of video ads was an experiment to see how intrusive the ads were and whether they would noticeably impact the user experience. We have indicated that our intention was to contact artists and hash this out once we had gotten the ball rolling on 501c3 status, and now it also seems like a revision to the content policy makes sense as well. It's been a long, unnecessarily stressful conversation, but ultimately tomorrow we're going to post a mix & continue operations... So what will that look like? Our experiment is now effectively ended as we can no longer observe the impact of ads in a neutral setting. We will not be enabling ads on additional videos UNTIL we can: Submit a filing for 501c3 status AND obtain this status, or reorganize into something more appropriate than a sole-proprietorship LLC. Modify the content policy with agreeably clear language. Present this change to artists and solicit feedback in a more civil setting, without toxic misinformation and accusations disrupting that dialogue. We will proceed with removing ads from videos posted since June 13th. Exceptions will include any videos from artists who explicitly indicate they're cool with the ads staying, even prior to the above steps being taken. We would like to continue gathering analytics/metrics and seeing how everything works as we proceed with 501c3, etc., so this WILL be helpful to us. This removal will take a bit because to our knowledge, there's no batch mechanism for changing these settings, it has to be done one-by-one. Not awful, just a little monotonous. (UPDATED: Done!!) If you wanna help us get some more data in the meantime & have ads enabled on your videos, please let us know... as I said, we could use the additional insight. So yes, this is still a thing & it's still happening - assuming the three steps outlined above can be completed and that artist feedback points us in this direction - but for now, thank goodness, we can take a break and wait until our ducks are in a row, we've made an historic step towards 501c3 status, we've updated the content policy to make things clearer, and we've had a more informed & productive conversation.

newt and brandon's posts demonstrate why this topic should likely be discussed behind closed doors

Oh trust me, I've noticed. Oh have I noticed. Anyway, I'm not going to contribute further to this thread. I will just say that as long as these ads encourage OCR's survival and growth as an organization and support its mission, I am on board with using YouTube as an alternate advertisement revenue source. I know there will still be dissidence, but you can't satisfy everything, and bygones will be bygones. Are there legal ramifications? Well, yes, OCR has always been vulnerable to legal blowback by its very nature. We'll see what happens, but from a legal standpoint we were never quite in the right to begin with. Are there moral ramifications? Well, duh, but since when does morality count for anything when it comes to Copyright or business proceedings in the US? That last one is sarcasm and does not warrant a response.

He said it's always been infringement, not it's always been illegal. He said if website ads were ruled illegal, than so would YT ads. And he also said if website ads were ruled legal, than so would YT ads. Fair Use and copyright infringement are not mutually exclusive. Fair Use is a defense for a category of copyright infringement that has been cleared by a court of law; in other words, it's infringement, but the judge says it's okay if he thinks it's Fair Use. OCR has always operated in this manner. Your own arrangements operate in this manner whether or not you make a single cent on them for ANY reason. All of your video game arrangements are copyright infringement, and always have been, and will continue to be even if OCR shut down Patreon, turned off the donation service, and took down all ads everywhere. Nothing you say can get you out of it. It doesn't matter if you release the music for free and non-profit outside of OCR, it's still infringement. Even if it's Fair Use, it's still infringement. There is nothing inconsistent between what Larry and Zircon said.

I propose we get sponsorship from EA. We can have a twenty second EA ad inserted at the beginning of each remix (even the old ones!) to help with the cost. And then another one at the end of each remix. Fuck it, put one in the middle as well. That's three times the EA in every remix! Three times the income! Of course, as true to the EA business model as possible, we'll have to double, if not quadruple, the amount of work the staff does, but since there's no overtime pay, we'll save a fortune. (please don't do this, I'm joking. Oh god, someone's going to seriously consider it, aren't they?)

@AngelCityOutlaw is the crux of your objection that the monetization is taking place through a third party, who have their "hands in the revenue stream"? How or why is it any different than ads through Google (who take a cut) or support through Patreon (who also takes a cut)?

The content policy DOES mention advertisements. It does not mention the specific medium or form those advertisements would take... presumably, if enough people feel that it isn't intuitive that the policy as written covers YouTube ads, we could explicitly include that? Not just on this forum - we monitored YouTube comments as well, and saw nothing there or on social media or elsewhere... if there was a better way of observing naturally how YouTube ads would be received and how they would impact the user experience, I'm unaware of it. "it's for the good of the site" isn't an explanation that can "run its course" - it's the ONLY explanation we've ever had, and the only one we ever WILL have. It doesn't expire just because we've said it a lot, and we've said it a lot because it remains true. I'm definitely getting that you feel a line has been crossed, but I'm not seeing how the justification for revenue generation for the site would ever change or expire...

I have no issue with YouTube ads, even full skippable ones.

I think perhaps some people draw a strong line between web ads & YouTube ads, but I'm waiting to hear why that is - it definitely deserves to be talked about, and I'm going to apologize in advance to any artists who feel we should have informed them first BEFORE even testing the waters. We see these ads as equivalent to the existing web ads, as being preferable to them, and as not representing a change in our existing policy, and we wanted a "dry run" & to measure their impact as scientifically as possible. I'm interested in where this thread goes, and eager to answer any questions. Depending on the outcome, an official announcement will be made & sent out to artists in case folks don't monitor the forums. Some quick points: @Brandon Strader's right in that we started testing this on June 13th of this year Since that date, $130.99 in ad revenue was generated from ALL YouTube ads combined, a portion of which goes to our channel network This is considerably less than what web ads USED to make, but ever since we tweaked them to get rid of obnoxious & irrelevant content, web ads have tanked... so this is more than they ARE making at present. It's worth noting that it took two months for anyone to really notice... in my mind this is a successful experiment JUST in terms of gauging the impact to the average viewer/listener. Ads have NOT yet been enabled for the 3000+ video back catalog - we are waiting to do that based on the outcome of this conversation and after an official announcement. At that point the ad $$$ would obviously be more, but it won't be one video, or even one artist's videos, making a huge contribution to that - it's the aggregate. We were also hoping to time that announcement with a parallel announcement of filing for 501c3 status and debuting new artist pages which do a better job of promoting the artist than our current layout. So, why would we do this at all when the Patreon is completely covering the site's operating costs, with SURPLUS? An extremely fair question. To be honest, I hate managing the money side of OCR, I didn't sign up for this, and it's not something I derive joy in even contemplating. For the 501c3 I'm hoping someone on staff can take on the role of treasurer so I can free myself of it. Nevertheless, answers to the above question: I'm an IT guy. I have backups for my backups. I don't like having a single point of failure, and without a meaningful form of ad revenue, the site's existence would rest solely with Patreon. Membership in a YT network has other benefits... increased reach, an extra level of protection from content matches, etc. Mainly, at least for me, I saw that our web ads completely tanked after we tweaked them to exclude annoying/irrelevant content. I don't think Google's ad model for websites is as good as their model for videos. I'd love to remove most if not all Google ads from this site, and only feature completely relevant stuff like Super Audio Cart, OverClocked Records, and also use that space to promote our existing/upcoming albums. It absolutely is; our content policy still applies, and always will. For the 501c3 filing, there would be additional clarity required surrounding what specifically counts as an operational or promotional cost, tying our hands a bit further, in addition to more specific IRS documentation requirements.

We were testing the waters, getting an idea of how it would work, the different settings involved, how obtrusive it would be, etc. We did legitimately want to see whether people would notice, and when. The community definitely deserves to know and provide input, and if a majority (or potentially a plurality) of artists are uncomfortable with it, we can reassess, but I'll lay out the general thinking below and you can see what you think. We can use this thread to discuss; just need to keep things civil & productive. This is not civil or productive; I'm confused why you're still registered and taking the time to chime in, if you're so convinced that the music is mediocre, which is kind of an insult to all artists contributing to this thread, either way... So this is surprising to me, because the way we see it, ads on videos are not materially different from ads on the website, all of which go directly towards funding the site. Nothing has changed, policy-wise. From http://ocremix.org/info/Content_Policy This remains 100% true; the only difference is that the ads are on YouTube instead of the website. We'd like to minimize or even eliminate ads on the website in favor of YouTube, primarily because they're more annoying, less relevant, affect layout/usability, and don't accomplish much. Based on @bLiNd's reaction, and perhaps others, it seems like people are drawing a major distinction between YouTube ads and ads on this website, and that's what this conversation needs to focus on, because from a policy perspective, again, nothing has changed - any $$$ goes towards operation & promotion, and the net effect is just that ads are offloaded from the site and onto videos, where we feel they make a bit more sense. No unskippable ads, FYI. There are other benefits to being a partner channel, including enhanced reach and protection from instant takedowns, that seem to make this a smart move for us, but nothing is concrete - let's talk it through, but let's focus on the core question: how is this different from the status quo?

First of all I'd like to apologise. I never wanted to even insinuate that you guys aren't doing a great job. Because you guys _are_ doing a great job. I probably should have formulated that differently. (Or not at all.) I also realise that you're all volunteers, and I respect the effort that you're putting into this (or the fact that you're even taking the time to read and respond to my posts, since I'm a relative outsider). What really gets to me, though, is the apparent "all or nothing" mentality of these responses, as Liontamer mentions. (Thanks Liontamer!) It's been stupid of me to not point this out specifically, but I never intended for _all_ of the OC Remix catalogue to be put on streaming services. Maybe some day, if possible, yes. But surely not initially. I was mostly considering the album projects. I mean, albums like Voices of the Lifestream would be pretty safe bets as they are easily licensed through, for example, Loudr (only one game per album for most of them), and from what I've seen Square Enix doesn't really make a big fuss about fan arrangements. I mean, OC ReMix could start out posting just the albums on streaming services every week or month or [insert random timeframe here]. Starting with either Kong in Concert, which, from what I gather, would be easily licensable, or Relics of the Chozo if it's possible to license it. Or, of course, if you're feeling adventurous, just upload it rogue. (There are plenty of Super Metroid fan arrangements on Spotify already, so either they got successfully licensed or Nintendo just doesn't seem to care. But I assume OC ReMix respects the original copyright holders sufficiently to not post unlicensed songs.) From there you just continue on, trying to get as many albums on there as possible. That _would_ constitute a moderate amount of effort. So yeah, baby steps. Just having a handful of OC ReMix albums on there would already be awesome. I would never expect anyone to undertake a complete "get all OC ReMix songs on streaming services"-project in one go. That's would be an insane amount of work. But I can't stand it when people just write of an idea all together without exploring all the options. There is almost always room for concessions. Just keep in mind this is not a black or white situation. I still believe OC ReMix could and should extend their songs to Spotify. Also, let me make this clear: this has nothing to do with convenience for me personally. I have both an iTunes Match and Apple Music subscription. So every time new songs or abums come out on OC ReMix I just download them and drag them into iTunes and I'm set. I have all OC ReMix songs available to me where ever I go and I can listen them alongside all the songs on Apple Music, so I don't even need to switch app to listen to one or the other. The colleagues, friends and loved ones that I wish to share music with, however, aren't all as proficient with their computer or smartphone as I am. Neither can I expect them to pay for an iTunes Match subscription, or set up a Plex Media Server, etc. Practically all of them use Spotify, however, so if I just send them a link to an album on Spotify the barrier for getting them to listen to these songs is greatly reduced. Also for a lot of fans like me it serves as additional confirmation of their music tastes not being just this obscure underground thing. This may sound ridiculous to some of you, but I am sure others can understand. Anyway, I really think we're getting off on the wrong foot and that is too bad. Part of this is obviously my fault because, frankly, yeah I have a big mouth and I can come across as quite arrogant when talking about subjects I'm passionate about. But I always try to push my vision of the best solution for a problem, until someone corrects me, then I re-evaluate, and push forward again. Being passionate like this works better when in personal conversation because people can better judge my reactions and I can quickly correct myself, but on forums I tend to get a hard time. So _please_ take my comments with a grain of salt. I'm not really as arrogant as I seem to be. And I really admire the artists and volunteers that put their free time into this community. So keep up the awesome work.

Yoooooooo. Fuuuuuuuck. Niiiiiice. YES

The yin-yang of the Ansari brothers on perfect display