Nabeel Ansari

I'd explain this isn't how logic works, but I'd have to use logic to do so, and that doesn't really work if you don't understand how logic works in the first place. Right, the evidence which is...

So this is your view, now why do you hold this view? Any particular cases or previous patterns? Or specific language of the law? I want to know why you're convinced of this, because to me my gut reaction was that "of course" it would make material significance. It's a legit question.

It's not about if profit can be ethically justified, it matters if it's legal.

No one is far beyond taking the staff's word for it. You're the only person asserting that OCR staff is lying about making money off the site. It's pretty insulting, and to be frank, kind of disgusting in the face of how productive the rest of this thread has been. Since I am close friends with much of the staff, I take personal offense that you're slandering them like this. You need to desist on this point. It's so far removed from the reality of the rest of the discussion we're having. They were great, and it was a win for everyone involved. Total killer idea, would do again.

This is probably the most pragmatic thing said in this thread.

Can I get an answer on my legality concern? According to law, is this (the purpose of the revenue being investing into the organization) actually a valid defense to say it's not profit and therefore it has a chance at Fair Use? If the answer is yes, then I'm okay with it. If the answer is no, then I think artist payouts and licensing is needed in order for OCR to move to more honest territory. Either way, I think the submission agreement needs some language update.

Profit effectively precludes Fair Use. Supreme Court has said "every commercial use of copyrighted property is presumptively an unfair exploitation", "unfair" w.r.t Fair Use. I'm not really convinced that direct revenue generation that rises over time isn't "profit" just because it goes to an organization and not the pockets of a specific person. I think there's a revenue that doesn't count as "profit", and it's called donations. Whether or not OCR has already effectively monetized the music in the past is irrelevant; in light of the new information and perspectives from people, it's important to evaluate if OCR should stop, or if it should continue at the same level, or continue and go beyond, and recognize the potential legal problems that can arise, as well as those from the community members themselves.

These discussions are really not suited for the public forum if the person leaves a contact detail and clearly states they don't want to share a lot. If you don't want to inquire further, then move on.

Additionally, I'm kind of confused. DJP seems to invite discussion on the topic, but other users seem to assert it's not even a point of contention. Which is it? Does OCR want to hear the thoughts of its members or doesn't it?

I don't think there's any ratio of "Neblix" vs. "OverClocked ReMix" that makes it passable. If a person stumbles onto a song by browsing the catalog of a record label, does that artist suddenly not get the revenue? OCR is not a record label, so the actual logistics and rules do not apply, but for the principle in question, I feel, it is an accurate analogy. Again, it's not a "why" in terms of "why is the person getting to the music", but in terms of literally and technically "why is the ad revenue transaction being logged in the system". We can play the game of "OCR always made money from ads because people came to the site for music", but that's not what's actually happening in terms of the system's moving parts. People are coming to the site for music, but ad revenue is generated on pages of the site which are not serving the content. The ads are alongside the content, but not a direct result of engaging the content. Whether or not I press play on the YouTube vid in the write-up page has no bearing on whether that ad revenue goes through. On YouTube, the ads are served when the user engages the content. Going to the page of the content counts, because YouTube autoplays on load. As I said before, the submission agreement is a bit ambiguous and outdated. I think this is definitely a case where old wording is being exploited a bit too liberally, beyond the assumed intention of what people may have agreed to several years ago, before streaming and content monetization were a dominant force in the internet. The issue is not that the agreement doesn't cover the activity, the issue is that the agreement isn't fair because the climate has changed over the years, and it needs revision to either protect this new usage pronto, or stop using the music this way, or some kind of middle ground, not sure. If it does, though, as I said before, I'm concerned that this edges closer to OCR's activities no longer falling under Fair Use.

Please, tell me more.

This is a needlessly utilitarian approach; if OCR doesn't seek to have its community members comfortable with what it does, it damages the reputation and retention of community members. Saying "it doesn't matter how you feel" is side-stepping what the issue is in the first place, which is primarily fueled by how people feel in wake of what OCR is doing now.

Yes, if it is not tied to consumption, I don't mind. But there is a case to be made that since videos auto-play on page load, those ads are also tied to consumption. It's all about traffic, and the details of why the ad revenue was generated. Was it generated because someone visited the site? Or was it generated because someone wanted to listen to my remix? In the latter case, two problems on opposite sides are that 1) i'm not being paid and 2) neither are the copyright holders for the orignal music.

Whether or not this is ethical as far as OCR's relationship with the artists who have submitted this music, to me, is secondary to the concern that this is kind of damaging the good case we had for Fair Use as far as arranging copyrighted material and releasing it publicly unlicensed. It seems silly to me to equate website ads to YouTube ads. Website ads are driven by traffic to the OCR website/forums, and the mix write-ups. On YouTube, the ad revenue is generated directly from the content that users are consuming. The ad is tied to consumption; when a user consumes the content on YT by hitting play, ad revenue is generated. It's monetizing the content itself. To me this isn't really subjective, if you look at it in terms of the actions the user takes that lead to these systems logging the transactions. (Of course there is an extent to which the evaluation of whether something is subjective/objective is in and of itself subjective) Besides personally feeling like an outdated submission policy has kind of been invoked on us artists, dormant patent troll style, to make it "okay" for OCR to do this because they're "covered" (I personally don't mind for my music because I'm invested in this community), I'm not sure why this isn't considered downright illegal. This music is not licensed, and should not be generating revenue; site revenue should come completely from donations, because OCR is (or at least approaches in spirit) a non-profit organization. Submission policy notwithstanding, I also feel artists should get appropriate portion of revenue. My music is creating money, why aren't I getting that money? Is it because paying me makes it legally inconvenient? Well, that, but also, it's because OCR doesn't have the technical infrastructure to organize the payouts to artists like that. And so that makes for two reasons why it shouldn't be done; it's monetizing unlicensed music and it's ethically "wrong" to not give people a piece of the pie for their hard work (and OCR literally can't do so even if they decided to because of resources). And because the policy protects OCR to not have to pay artists at all, I think the policy is too ambiguous and needs revision to match the climate of today's internet musical consumption models (streaming and such). On the other Spotify thread, I proudly said that OCR isn't trying to "fly under the radar" with anything we do, but I feel there's a strong case for this monetization being illegal, and now it's starting to look like we *are* flying under the radar, especially because DJP had stated one of the main points of the experiment was to see if anyone noticed it was being done. As far as Brandon Strader's opening sentiment, I think it's baseless, and insults the intelligence and collective intentions of the staff, as much as similar opinions were shared when Super Audio Cart was released or when the FF6 Kickstarter went up.

No it _wouldn't_, because licensing even just a single album is not a "moderate amount" of effort. You're also ignoring the fact that OCReMix generating revenue on the work of hundreds of artists is a recipe for disaster. Distributing revenue, generating tax forms, etc. Not a single person on this site ever signed a legal contract giving rights to OCR to monetize their work, nor did they sign it waiving their right to the revenue so that OCR could keep it for itself. The submission policy covers distribution, it does not grant OCR any rights to use the music commercially and for profit. Also, just as an aside, if OCR does miraculously build all of the infrastructure needed for this project, it's now a commercial, for-profit entity and its eventual goal of getting the 501c3 non-profit status would go down the drain.

The entire point of getting it on Apple Music/Spotify is to reach a wider audience. Making an OCR Stream Service doesn't do anything to reach new people, because people who know about the OCR Stream Service find about it through... OCR.

1) They are full of licensed fan arrangements. Just because the distinction doesn't cross your mind doesn't mean there isn't a clear legal difference. 2) Loudr does not have the resources to license the entire catalog of source tunes that OCR pulls from in any reasonable timeframe, assuming it was even possible using their methods, which it isn't as @Flexstyle said. Loudr is run by like 20 people. And they're not gonna dedicate their company's resources for the next few years to getting all of OCR's catalog able to be streamed. They would get nothing out of it. 3) There is no will, nor are there resources or infrastructure, and there is no way. 4) Unlicensed arrangements aren't a "legal grey area", it is copyright infringement, and when monetizing for commercial profit has 0% chance of being defended as Fair Use (this is according to the SCOTUS). No one's "flying under the radar", and we're not trying to "prevent being noticed". Everyone (nintendo, square enix, sega, capcom, etc.) knows about OCR, and they let us continue, because all of our community output is free and voluntary. 5) Generating revenue based on the work of hundreds and hundreds of artists and putting it "toward the site" is one of the most terrifying recipes for legal nightmares I've ever heard of. If you are so certain that you have the right answers on how to benefit the community and are so sure that setting up the required financial and legal infrastructure for all of these efforts is "moderate effort" (it's not), then stop whining and contact DJP directly to talk about getting involved with the community and get these efforts going yourself.

The philosophical question posed was specifically about 8-bit music, which is inherently a digital sound chip concept; whatever you can classify as chiptune doesn't matter because the person asked a very specific question about what kind of music is omitted from this proposed new history. I think that's an important distinction to make because if you're going to ask a question like "what if 8-bit music didn't exist? wouldn't electronica not exist?", it demonstrates a huge flaw in historic reasoning (see my immediate response as to why). If you're going to broaden the question to be "what if old synthesizers were never invented?" then it falls into the latter aspect of my response, which is that electronica: 1) wouldn't exist on the premise that they never were invented and thus never could be simply for sake of the experiment 2) would exist because of patterns of reality i.e. if something isn't invented it's going to be invented at some point if not in some different form (see the simultaneous invention of Calculus by two different mathematicians) For the original question though, my point was that electronica music has never stemmed from any historic root in old digital soundchips. I guess you could make the case that old soundchips might have paved the way for more superior digital chips we see in more modern synth hardware but... I think that causality might be attributed incorrectly there. I doubt old game console soundchips led innovation or to the development of more improved digital sound hardware, I think they were simply created in parallel as a byproduct of where the tech was back then.

You know I'd be all over this if I had time.

Do you understand anything about the music industry? Streaming revenue? Copyright law? Also, do you understand anything about inquiry? Don't load your question with a bunch of predicted counter-arguments. It's rude, and fallacious. If you want to know something, ask a question. We know what Spotify is. We weren't born yesterday. :/

The electronica genre at large has never concerned itself with small soundchips found in game consoles. Sound synthesis, resampling, and electronic music in general was conceived long before and not even in direct relation before or after the advent of chiptune music. To say electronica would not exist without chiptunes is simply historically inaccurate. Chiptunes have nothing to do with the advancement of electronic music since synthesizer technology has been created and developed for years completely independent of what game soundchips were doing. The Moog was pioneered in the 1960s. That was when computers were still gigantic machines that lined the walls of a control room. This is of course except until the recent couple decades where emulating chiptunes became an appealing aspect of music and thus we started seeing it infused into our electronic music as an instrumentation choice. You could say chiptunes have had a profound (but latent) effect on the electronica genre as it's opened up opportunities to exploit the appeal of those nostalgic digital game sounds. It would be more accurate to say that without the advent of the analog synthesizer, game soundchips might not have existed; but that's the equivalent of saying if guns were not invented, we would still be using the precursor to guns. It's true if the premise is "if it was never invented and never could be for the purposes of the thought experiment" but false if the premise is more realistic such as "if it wasn't invented then, it would just be a matter of time until it was invented at some other time". If you prefer the former premise, it's not a very insightful thought experiment since it isn't based on critically analyzing patterns of reality.

@Meteo Xavier I think this thread is simply trying to be more substantial than the last one, where it devolved into vstbuzz posting their deal every week. It's more convincing to go for something if a community member/ReMixer actually says "this is really cool instrument that I like and it's super cheap right now" rather than it just being like a weekly deal newsletter from a retailer.

Eh.... I'm not quite over there, you're still a little alone. Sonic 4 was really not good, and Unleashed was like half good, but fell short through the tedium of its requirements that you collect a shit ton of medals to progress.

Sonic Generations and Sonic Colors were awesome, dude.

Yup.