Kenogu Labz

I'm late to the conversation, but I feel compelled to comment anyway.
I'm baffled at the extreme reactions this topic brought out in people, particularly those of you getting panties rocketed up the wazoo over not making money for your fan remixes of music.
This line sticks out to me particularly.
"Great, instead it goes to the publisher and probably some to YouTube - who can make money off a totally for fun fan arrangement I made. [...] If there is going to be money involved in fan arrangements, I'd just not bother with OCR or YouTube and licence the tracks myself."
Good lord, dude. Go check your couch cushion, you'll find your royalties there. These things, from my continued experience and reference, really don't generate people much money. You're not missing hundreds of dollars here, more likely, you're missing hundreds of cents. It's not worth getting upset over.
I'm also baffled why so many of you are opposed to Youtube's ads from a financial point of view anyway. Youtube is in the running for the most important, most used and most influential website since time began on planet Earth and has billions upon billions of videos, data exchange and much more that it never asked a penny from you to provide unless you yourself were purchasing advertising on there. Did you really think Google is doing all that for free? If Youtube wasn't doing things like that, there wouldn't be a Youtube where you'd be complaining about your lost royalties in the first place.
It's taking a fair amount of restraint for me to remain civil instead of diving into more far biting, sardonic criticism I feel is better owed to this sense of entitlement from grown ***damn adults with college-level educations. I don't get why you did something for free, without the idea it was going to directly make you money, and then suddenly change that mindset when something changes to make you think you could've directly made (not much) money from it or where that chump change is going. Is it the principle of the thing? That's just something people say when they do something knowing it's not really logical or reasonable in the first place and still want to complain. If it's copyright, Nintendo and Square-Enix and CAPCOM and Konami and NAMCO et al all know how to get a hold of us if they want. If you're worried about copyright, you best stop doing fan remixes in the first place - it's potential infringement from the first note on.
In short, I feel nothing about this warrants the criticism it's receiving. I feel this has at least some to do with my overarching thesis that composers these days are adopting an irrational, ironclad, black-and-white financial defense mechanism for any audio they do no matter the scale or how trivial it is. Very little has actually changed, so very big critical backlashes for it are unwarranted.

So you chose to ignore reality in favor of a feeling to make decisions, well, I certainly don't do that;  you're entitled to do it on your own decisions.  Anyone can feel that a decision is wrong even if it goes against reason, but that doesn't mean it's the reality of it.  I for one do not care about decisions based on groundless or illogical arguments appealing to feelings as those are subjective and everyone has their own.  The fair thing is to look at things objectively and see that Remixes have provided ocr with traffic during all its tenure and are the main source of income as very few people visit the site just for the forums and that number is decreasing as is also decreasing in most communities, vg related or otherwise.

Well, we're supposed to have a discussion, but since you don't care about people who disagree with you or their ideas, then I have no clue about what you're actually doing here.  I could say what someone who only enters a conversation to spew their rhetoric and purposefully ignore other arguments actually is, but that'd be considered inflamatory in what has otherwise been a civil discussion on both parts.  Good day, sir.
 

Fewer people come to OCR, which is not something unique to OCR but that is happening to pretty much every community out there as more people are less likely to keep up with an external website when they can just get all the information on all the comunities they belong to in their social media feed.  This is interesting of you to point out since if that's the case, it makes more sense to move the ads to where the people would see them and where it would help OCR more.

Facebook is monetizing people and their information.  Facebook's product is people, information, not facebook itself.  OCR product has always been Remixes, that's what draws people to the site and that is what we're monetizing with ads.  If we remove the remixes from ocr people won't come, there would be nothing to monetize, same as if we remove people and their information from facebook.  CNN's product isn't CNN, it's the news.  That's what they monetize with ads.  It's their product.  Radio stations monetize the music they broadcast, not the station, etc.  If people PERCEIVE that OCR is monetizing the remixes now and not before, they're just wrong and have no grounds on that argument, because that has always been OCR's product.

What are we monetizing with the website ads?  People come to ocr because of... the forums?  Our wonderful, 2005 web design?

Perception != Reality.

I'm sorry but I fail to see any of these arguments holding ground, with the exception of intrusiveness in youtube ads vs website ads, which is a point in favor of having the website ads instead of youtube ads.  Other than that, nothing has changed in where the money goes, which is, back to ocr, and what is actually being monetized, which are the remixes. I'm willing to bet money that less than 1% of the people who visit ocr do it for other reasons than to listen/download the remixes, thus ocr's product has always been the remixes and that's what we monetize.

I think this is a pretty reasonable experiment to do. I get how ads on YouTube videos are more "intrusive" because they are ingrained in the content that you consume. That's the sole difference in my mind. DJP gave a pretty solid explanation, and I think that morally speaking ads on YouTube videos are no different than ads on the site. Most people don't think of it that way though, myself included until I read DJP's explanation. People are used to YouTube ads generating profit on music videos and don't think of them in the same way that they'd think of a banner ad on a website.

Ads displayed on the page of the YouTube video rather than in the video would make a difference to me because the main (only?) problem I have with YouTube ads in the video is that they inherently make the content less enjoyable for those who don't use adblock. 

@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...

Just about any channel focusing on VGM remixes/covers, of which there are quite a few... Gamechops and Smooth McGroove come to mind.

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

Good question & points.
At this point in time we have a "budget surplus", but we do anticipate that filing for the 501c3 could be costly - I spoke with Nick from MAGFest, and they had actual counsel, and it took a good long while & cost five figures. I'm hoping we can do something faster & more streamlined and thus (hopefully much!) cheaper, but it's those types of things that are "operational" but only come up once in awhile. Beyond keeping the site functional, we really want to improve it AND the videos themselves, and we've been working on both, so our definition of "operational" includes improvements & striving towards goals, not JUST keeping the wheels turning.
The ads on the website ARE attached to the music in the sense that Google has the power to personalize them based on page content, which is exactly what they do with videos as well, but I hear you... it's a subjective thing, I don't think it's inherent, I think it's perceptual, but I see where you're coming from. This might be the biggest problem - the perception that YouTube ads are somehow functionally different in terms of how the revenue would be utilized. I don't know... it's not accurate, but I agree that this perception might exist.

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.

I have no objections. It's no different than advertisements on the site going to help pay for the site.

I'm kind of baffled that it's provoked such a negative reaction

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?

A symphonic EP combining the stories of Chrono Cross and Xenogears into one musical journey, Xeno Cross is now available to listen in its entirety on YouTube.
There is over 30 minutes of music, and the album can be downloaded on Loudr.fm, iTunes, and Amazon.  It's a follow-up to the Chrono Trigger album, Chrono Cinematica, and a final tribute to the music of Yasunori Mitsuda.  Thanks for listening!

Hi, I'm this threads Devil's advocate now. Remember how great it was when they "went back" with Sonic the Hedgehog 4? Ok I'm done here.

Yeah, I agree on the SAO bit.  The Asuna scenes in the second half of the first season get extremely creepy, extremely fast.

I would avoid showing SAO because showing an anime that is both popular and constructed like a harem doesn't send the right kind of vibes to impressionable teenagers.

There's a difference between what a teenager is actually interested in and is able to handle vs. what an adult is allowed to show them. It's one thing to recommend a good anime to a teen, it's another thing to run a club and show it to them, and be liable for it. That's why the caution is needed here.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Dragonball or Dragonball Z considering their continued popularity both here and in Japan. It's also more appropriate for children, especially the cut/censored US releases.
The main problem is that your target age range is more likely to be adventurous and find anime on their own, especially given how Crunchyroll gives easy access to the stuff. I teach middle school and many of my kids have definitely seen stuff that I would consider highly inappropriate for their age.

Some advice.
First and foremost, I am not some Tumblr/SJW/prudish cliche. I am also not the polar opposite (not sure what to call that? Shitlord?). What I am is someone that has watched anime since the mid 1980. And no, I don't mean Robotech. We had access to Japanese Macross. Lots of stuff from various sources over the years. That guy down the street how had fifth generation bootleg tapes from his cousin in Japan, some video stores with a very limited selection, right up to the 90s and 2000s with local anime conventions and dedicated stores. And now we have stuff like Crunchyroll, Netflix and all those torrents and streaming sites. My god, you kids have it so easy now. Seriously, you can not comprehend how different things were twenty years ago, let along thirty or more. Fuck yeah, future!
Any way, you're aiming at teens, aged 12 to 16. OK, cool. Lots of people got into anime about that age. Anime can be funny, even mind-blowing, at that age. Like, "holy shit, that was a crazy story!" Or, "holy shit, did you see that fight scene? It went on for twenty minutes!" Good times can, and will, be had. Open up interests in other countries and cultures, history, art and music, all kinds of stuff.
Buuuuut... there is something that this vast access to anime has brought with it. A lot of anime simply isn't appropriate for teens. And I don't mean "time to show a little skin!" inappropriate. I mean stuff ranging from under-age sexualization (seems to be popular these last few... decades) to straight-up sexual assault. Case in point: Nanatsu No Taizai.
Early in the series, the male lead character brings the unconscious lead female character to a safe place after a minor battle. Once in bed, he looks over, places his hand on her breasts, gives them a big ol' squeezin', and when she wakes up, says he was just checking her pulse.
No. No, that is not right. You pull that shit in real life, you get arrested. But in anime, it's OK because... ANIME!! It's fine in Japan! (No it isn't, it's a crime and the penalty is quite severe. Like the police. Seriously, don't get arrested in Japan).
So not all shows, regardless of suggestions or recommendations, are going to appropriate for 12 to 16 year old kids. Watch the shows. Not one or two episodes, watch at least five of them (if not more) to make sure. Think about what kind of scenarios these kids are going to be watching over the weeks or months, and what kind of impressions and messages these shows are going to make.
And for the love of Arceus, legally cover you ass. Make sure everything you do is on the up-and-up. Work with the staff to make sure there are no laws or regulations in your town/state/province/territory/etc about shows and ratings. None of us want to hear about some guy in a small town library getting arrested for accidentally showing "that there Jap cartoon porn" to some 12 year-olds, even when we all know that is not the case.
Once you clear those two concerns, go for it. Invite the parents to watch with their kids, maybe get a small article in the local paper or something to get more members (and also solidify your good standing in the community), have a small local convention if there aren't any in your region. There are so many ways this could turn out good, and most of them you won't even have to work hard at. Small clubs can be a wellspring of friendships and good memories that will be around for years after the club could fold up. It's worth the time and effort, even if it's only in a small town library.
Good luck!

It's its own thing.  There are some very memorable tracks, and many not so much.  It's also got a lot more volume than most other FF soundtracks, clocking in at 12+ hours of music for A Realm Reborn and Heavensward (not to mention the tracks reused from the original release), so the goodness has a lot more room to be spread out in.  Overall, it works superbly in the context of the game; it may not fit personal taste, and that's understandable, but it might grow on you a bit when you're in the heat of battle, facing the gradually escalating fight with Titan, or facing a goblin-esque mechanical labyrinth.  It felt weird when I first heard it, but it works out splendidly when used in its context.
As for Soken: agreed, that's the caveat that has me puzzled and unable to fully trust this wasn't stolen.  Even if he hadn't heard the song, it would be in good taste and humility to recognize that there is indeed that similarity there.

Please listen to the rest of the soundtrack to A Realm Reborn (and some of the carry-overs from the original release), as well as Heavensward.  Then form a full opinion.
The majority of the soundtrack is strongly instrumental with this more metal style only being used in choice scenarios, usually for Primal fights: the classic summons are used in this world as godlike defenders of the world's beast races, and starting with Titan, there are a lot of lyrical metal or electronica songs based around the primal's theme and that of their patron race.  Take, for example, the theme to one of the Alexander fights released recently.
Or, perhaps, try out the first theme I know of in the game that had this tone shift, the five-stage theme to the primal Titan's fight:
All that detail to say: yes, it's a change, but I think it's one that's been implemented tastefully and to excellent tonal effect in the game itself.  Even if you dislike those tracks, the rest of the soundtrack may be more fitting to personal taste.  Or not.  Just don't take a couple of samples and assume it represents the whole, especially when a wide variety is represented in the source.
As to the original topic at hand... yeah, I understand the theft argument.  There is certainly strong similarity in tone, perhaps a nod to the 'Worlds Collide' opening verses, but it diverges fairly strongly after that that.  A tribute, perhaps - and one that should probably be affirmed and recognized by Soken, not denied - but at most just that, a tribute and not outright theft.