djpretzel

e.g. http://ocremix.org/artist/4628/zircon Uses Bootstrap 3 More visual layout YouTube playlists! Emphasis on artist links is front and center, including support links for patreon, oc records, etc. Definitely a work-in-progress, but since it was better than what we HAD, we're going live now and will iterate Other pages will be updated to kinda-sorta match, as time allows This pushes us further towards an overall site redesign by getting pages laid out in Bootstrap, semi-responsive, etc. in a piecemeal fashion Feedback welcome

We offered a path forward, it was rejected, remix removal was requested by the artist, and given a long history of issues, we agreed it was for the best.

@The Damned Full specs are known? I don't think so... some vague stuff has been put together, we know it's a "custom Tegra" chip for example, but I haven't see detailed specs. Link? Might end up being the most bad-ass handheld/portable gaming system ever.... as a console, I really hope that Nintendo considers turning the dock into a discrete GPU that can *eventually* bump things up. If it used TB3, for example, you could see upgrading the dock independent of the tablet as a way for the system to move forward. Will be loads of fun either way, but I do want to see the full specs, and AFAIK they are not yet known.

Good stuff; builds very nicely from a simple intro into something grander. Would totally fit in a game, IMO.

@A.M. Wolf Try Audio Overload: http://www.bannister.org/software/ao.htm Or foobar2000, but you'll need plugins for that just like with Winamp: http://www.foobar2000.org/ However, Winamp seems to work just fine on Win 10 for me, on multiple machines, so you might be able to resolve that issue if you asked for help.

It'd be weird NOT to wish the album well... so I do as well And I hope many artists choose to submit their arrangements here. An email will be forthcoming on the logistics of all of this.

This particular saga is ended; Brandon has requested removal of his mixes from OCR, and we have decided that it makes sense, given his continued reluctance to admit any wrongdoing and continued insistence that we are in some way at fault / corrupt / whatever. Put frankly, I don't trust him, I don't believe he learned anything from any of this, and I believe he'd just do it all over again in a heartbeat the next time something came up that he didn't like, didn't understand, misinterpreted, etc. As much of a fan as I am of the music he personally has released via OCR, which we have stood behind, and the albums he has coordinated... if I'm taking time away from my daughters to work on OCR, it has to be for the music, for the site, and for the community, not for the twisted ego & paranoia of a single artist intent on stirring up drama, baiting people, making unfounded accusations, etc. I am willing to endure quite a bit for the betterment of OCR, and I realize that not ALL of the tasks that I'm responsible for are going to be fun, or enjoyable, or without controversy, but I cannot be expected to indefinitely babysit the fragile ego/psyche of someone who continuously makes bad faith accusations without evidence and sees no fault in his own actions, not to mention a LONG history of claims of harassment by other community members, abusive behavior on the forums, etc. We will be mailing FF3 artists as well as collaborators who have worked with Brandon on posted mixes, as those will remain on the site unless a consensus decision to remove is reached by all parties. Existing published albums are unaffected by this process. It's sad, but my goodness... I can't be expected to have unlimited patience and tolerance, nor can our staff. Long time coming. Time to move on.

Neat! Definitely sounds close... were you the first to notice, or repeating from somewhere else?

Awesome, glad you're still down! YES, the Sep. 12th WIP deadline remains in place. No need to change it, let's keep things moving forward, and once the poll has a majority of votes, we'll be modifying the roster accordingly, reaching out with new contact info, etc. No worries, we can make that happen.

Good call; link should be fixed, thanks for pointing that out! I just posted on that thread as well: http://ocremix.org/community/topic/33986-final-fantasy-iii-finish-song-or-risk-being-cut/?page=14#comment-815281 Short version is that with FF3, I really don't know - I can't IMAGINE it would be cancelled 100%, but unless Brandon's okay with it being released here under new direction or every last artist strongly opposed it being released outside of OCR, it seems like it won't be an OC ReMix album. If all artists are in agreement that they don't want to participate UNLESS it's an OC ReMix album, then I think a case could be made that it should still be released here, but the FF I - II - III trilogy has really been a Brandon Strader production... I'm hoping something can be worked out, but I'm not optimistic. I'm guessing that Brandon will reach out to artists and communicate his own wishes, which hopefully someone will convey back here on the forums, and everyone can make an educated decision. It's sad.

Please see thread: Short version: due to threats, unfounded accusations, and a general attitude that we don't believe is compatible with participation on these forums or in running an OC ReMix community album, Brandon Strader has been permanently banned. For the FF8 project, @zircon, @JJT, and myself will be stepping in as directors, assuming that artists are cool with continuing their efforts here, for OCR, in Brandon's absence. For this FF3 project, the situation is a bit more complicated... it's further along, it's part of a trilogy that has always been Brandon's baby, and I don't feel it would be appropriate to continue the album here, in his absence, unless he explicitly is okay with that. If ANY of the participating artists want to contact Brandon and see if they can direct the album instead and it can remain an OCR release, that would be great. I'm not optimistic, but it's worth a shot. If he's not cool with that, I'm guessing he'll want to release this album elsewhere, and that he will take a poll and see what you all think would make the most sense. It saddens me to think that a trilogy that began here on OCR and rocked an amazing second album that was every bit as good as the first will end up being completed somewhere else, but Brandon has made his feelings known and there's not much else to say. If anyone has any updates, new information, or questions for me specifically (I can't speak for Brandon), please chime in. Yes, this sucks. No, it's not how we wanted things to go. Yes, it appears to be absolutely necessary based not only on events in the last 48hrs, but leading up to those events for the past few months.

@HeavenWraith, @Chernabogue, @Tuberz McGee, @Chris Porter Music, @Wiesty, @Sagnewshreds, @Manji, @RiverSound, @Ivan Hakštok, @XPRTNovice, @Gario, @Geoffrey Taucer, @DjjD, @jnWake, @shadowpsyc, @bluelighter, @Larsec, @fxsnowy, @DusK, @Jackson Alexander Parodi, @Jorito, @theshaggyfreak, @audio fidelity, @zykO, @Jivemaster, @Cyril the Wolf, @Hat, @Hipnotyk, @Amphibious, @Jason Covenant Bad news... Unfortunately, due to recent events, Brandon Strader has been permanently banned from these forums. In the interest of full disclosure, if you have not already read through them, the relevant threads are linked below. We have always tried to keep both the submission evaluation & album direction processes about the music, and not about the politics, personalities, or drama surrounding anyone participating, and for sixteen years we've been able to do a pretty good job with that, but a line is crossed when there's libel involved and when someone consistently spreads unfounded accusations and bad faith rumors about this site and its staff. I'd like to apologize to all artists contributing to this project who have been doing an excellent job; one thing I'll certainly say is that Brandon DOES know how to run an album project, as he has shown. In a perfect world, we would never dream of interfering with or jeopardizing the successful completion of what should be an amazing album, but alas, our world is not perfect. In spite of the risk to projects Brandon has underway, we feel that his threats, accusations, and general attitude towards the site do not make him an appropriate director of a community album, or an acceptable presence on these forums. But wait, the show isn't over... I've spoken with @JJT & @zircon and between the three of us, we feel that we can direct this album and continue on the path laid out, towards a successful release. This is absolutely dependent on whether you, the contributing artists, are okay with this change of leadership. We will completely understand if this leaves a bad taste in your mouth, if you are more loyal to him specifically than to OCR and wish to contact him and resume work via another avenue, or if the whole thing is now dead to you and you want to crawl in a hole somewhere and drink cocoa, however, we HOPE that you will choose to keep trekkin' and see this thing through as an OCR release, and the three of us are going to do our best to make that happen. To that end, we have set up a poll in the FF8 project forum - please vote ASAP so we know where things stand! If you're on the album but can't access the above link, let me know. Absolutely no hard feelings if you wish to continue working with Brandon elsewhere - it won't be an OCR album anymore, and we hope to continue this effort here regardless, but it'll probably be pretty good, based on his track record. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1304971649533011/permalink/1345644188799090/

Thanks all, much appreciated!

Nah, it's a good point... anyone can file. Three things: You're right, we should wait until we actually obtain the status, not just file. I'll update the above post. If for some reason we cannot obtain the status, we'll need to revisit whether some other organizational structure can provide similar benefits/assurances. Just FYI, with regard to the books being open we're basically talking about a 990-EZ, as per: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f990ez.pdf

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.

I'm glad you think they're "nice" - but your statements were not speculations, they were false statements about "evidence". If you continue to make such statements, you will be permanently banned from this community, once and for all. Artists contributing to your projects can choose whether to contribute to them elsewhere, or under new management here. It's not my first choice for how this all should pan out, but you're making this site toxic for me to even interact with, you're disrespecting me and my staff, and that's a problem.

I don't think you have. I don't think you've done your best to present "the facts as stated"... Here's why: "I think the major problem here is that the trust of the site is so far beyond gone that nobody has a legitimate reason to believe any staff or owner of OCR is not profiting from this." - this is not a fact, this is a thought that starts off personal, but then you assert that NOBODY has reason to believe anything we're saying w/ regard to profit... which is not only NOT a fact, but is in the proximity of libel... "Disregarding the unethical and potentially illegal aspect of them profiting off of the music itself" - right, as stated, we aren't profiting. The funds are earmarked solely for site purposes. Continuing to call this profit is synonymous with claiming that ANY money OCR *ever* takes in would be profit as well, in which case... no more OCR. So not a presentation of fact... "I'm going to assume from now on that each staff member is making a fair amount of income from the site." - this is you doing your best to present facts? "Your content policy doesn't stretch to youtube usage." - not a statement of fact; your opinion. Hinges on the word "context" which I happen to think most people would have a pretty good idea of... "Your own policy prohibits you from doing what you did" - not a statement of fact, ditto as above. "Were sales of Super Cart not too good? That's unfortunate." - not a statement of fact, just kinda douchey. It's sold pretty well, FYI... this is you doing your best to present facts? "We need an audit, we need someone to go over the financials, and the horrors within need to be disclosed." - which horrors? The ones you have absolutely no evidence of? So that's doing your best to present "facts"? "I have more reason to believe the site will be dead in a year because the financials weren't properly held and OCR falls into legal hell, than anything else. There's more evidence of that." - now you're talking about "evidence" that we'll fall into "legal hell" because financials weren't "properly held." This is actually libel, FYI. I have no intent to act on it, but I believe it would qualify. You're literally claiming that evidence exists of fiscal wrongdoing. This is not only not presenting "facts as stated", it's a statement for which you could be legally held accountable. "since it was hidden from us for 2 months, there is no way I will ever support this regardless of an audit." - this isn't a statement of fact, it's just you doing a full reversal of your above call for an audit. You literally said "we need an audit!" and then "I won't support this regardless of an audit!" - this isn't presentation of fact, it's schizophrenic. "And probably the reason I didn't find it sooner is because I was banned for over a month due to questioning OTHER shady stuff that occurred and staff behavior from the past." - this is misleading. You were informed why you were banned. If you want us making all of that public on this thread, we can. It wasn't related to "shady stuff"... "You say nobody but OCR should worry about legal issues, but the content policy clearly pushes liability onto the remixer." - this is not a statement of fact, and is again misleading. We CANNOT indemnify the submitting artist because our license is non-exclusive - they could post it elsewhere, they could sell it for $10,000, who knows. We can't indemnify that, and we're making that clear. "This really isn't about me in any way though" - sure... So... just to be clear... all of that was you... doing your best... to present the facts as stated? Anyone wanna defend that claim, or is it as egregiously false as it seems to me, based on the above?

There is no "monetization plan" - there is just the enabling of ads on YouTube. That's it. That's the "plan". As for projects, at present, we don't post every project mix to YouTube. We used to, but we don't anymore. That could change, but right now from albums what we DO post is submitted & approved ReMixes. Anything that gets submitted is subject to the same content policy that albums are. The project consent agreement references the exact same policy. Your concern about "monetization" would be just as valid back in 2013, with regard to banner ads on the website, as it is in 2016 relative to YouTube ads. If it's the same exact policy that's being agreed to, I think you know the answer - the policy would be applied the same, across the board. Albums would not have a special exception to the content policy, compared to individually submitted mixes. Why are you suggesting that contributing to an album should grant you special/different privileges than contributing a mix to the site? Why would artists in one context be treated preferentially? We've never done that in the past, and I'm confused as to why anyone would think that would be a good, or clear/intuitive, approach... Does anyone other than @Brandon Strader want to chime in and support the idea that album contributions should have a different content policy / agreement than individual submissions?

Okay, still no list of unanswered questions - for a while there you were repeatedly ragging on us for not answering ("dancing around") your questions, I've asked two times in a row for a numbered list that I can respond to in detail, and you've elected not to do that... why? But since you keep mentioning an "audit" I'm just curious as to what you mean. By a third-party? We're paying Price Waterhouse-Coopers or Accenture to come in? Any idea how expensive that would be? How extensive is said audit? Who performs it? How much would it have to cost for it to be a prohibitively bad idea? Here's what we're going to do in terms of an "audit" - we're going to apply for 501c3 status. Talk to @Chimpazilla if you want. Part of that process DOES involve a review of budget and expenses that could be likened to an audit. Since you haven't been at all specific, and you keep using the word "audit" as if everyone understands what that would be, who would do it, how much it would cost, etc., I'd like you to indicate whether you think the 501c3 application process is an acceptable form of this. If you're not willing to do the research on what an "audit" would look like OR what's involved with 501c3 status, you're basically just beating an empty drum and casting fear, uncertainty, and doubt on OCR without a genuine interest in its betterment. The ball is in your court on this issue; failure to respond directly to this question to me is, at this point, an admission of disinterest in legitimate progress. We *believe* you're wrong about YT revenue and that the back catalog will end up generating more than newer mixes; even though you are correct in that newer mixes get more views, we're talking about 3000+ videos... we've already disclosed the net sum generated since June 13th, and it has been negligible compared to Patreon. If you were genuinely concerned about corruption & how money is being spent, you would be far MORE concerned about Patreon, because at present - prior to enabling ads on the back catalog, at least - Patreon is far more critical to the site in terms of support. You're trying to have your cake and eat it too, rhetorically - you're the one "dancing" between the MEANS of revenue generation being the main problem, and how the revenue is being USED being the main problem. No one has yet chimed in who you claim is as gravely concerned as you are, from the projects you are directing. If you can get them to participate, it would be greatly appreciated. Perhaps this will be helpful: Things we ARE committed to thus far, moving forward, based on this conversation: Filing for 501c3 status in this calendar year. Updating the content policy with clarifying language surrounding "advertisements in the context of submitted material" meaning more than just banner ads, with YouTube as a specific example. Reaching out to artists via forum email addresses, social media, etc. for additional feedback on this topic prior to enabling ads on the back catalog of 3000+ videos. As @Liontamer said, I don't think there's a single thing or list of things we could do to make you happy. I feel like you've festered deep resentment towards the OCR staff, and I think at least some of that surrounds personal issues that aren't related to policy whatsoever. I feel like you've been intentionally misrepresenting our statements, ignoring our responses, casting doubt on our character, and attempting to stir up as much drama as humanly possible, and I think you're frustrated that many contributing to this thread and on Facebook are seeing that for what it is. Nevertheless, in spite of all that, in spite of your ignoring our at-length responses, I still want to this thread to result in a positive outcome. It probably won't be an outcome that satisfies you - I'm not convinced that's possible - but I'm very interested in what others have to say, including those who you've mentioned you've spoken to.

PLEASE have them chime in here and ask their questions & express their concerns directly... that's what this thread is for, and it is more productive to hear from them in their own words... We are JUST as non-profit now as we were previously, with ad banners on the website presented alongside the mixes & album pages. We keep repeating this, and you keep ignoring it... I know you & some others perceive YouTube ads as profoundly different from banner ads, but it should be clear from this thread and FB that many OTHER artists don't perceive this difference. Neither do we, but we're talking about it... I keep saying these things, you keep ignoring them.... 99.5% of the videos on the channel still do not have ads, and we are committed to hashing this out & discussing it further before applying this retroactively. This feels like a victim/persecution complex or something, but let's make one thing clear: we have ZERO interest in pissing you off for no reason. OCR is a better place with your music, and your efforts as an album director. Why would we intentionally pursue a course of action that would jeopardize that, if we didn't think it would help the community? You've been antagonizing us prior to this conversation, prior to your being banned from the forums... you had strong objections to OCR's association with Super Audio Cart, and you flung all sorts of bad faith accusations our way that very few people seemed to agree with, and now you're doing this. We'd LOVE to make you happy - we want everyone to be happy - and in my previous post I requested that you provide a numbered list of the questions you want answered, which I'd still like to see. I feel like perhaps you're feeling frustrated at this point that MORE people aren't publicly supporting your crusade against us... expressing concern about this policy is absolutely appropriate, and we're talking it through, but you've been repeating accusations of corruption, of for-profit motives, of "betrayal", etc. non-stop...

Brandon, you're the one not reading, or not processing, the responses being provided. It is disingenuous of you to characterize the extensive conversation taking place as our "dancing around" your questions. Please provide a numbered list of the questions you have that you feel remain unanswered; we've responded to some of them, but you're not acknowledging the response. In other cases, we've asked you for clarifications because the questions themselves are unclear... instead of engaging, you are choosing to stonewall our responses and pretend like they either do not exist, or do not address your questions. This latest post, above, is what I was afraid of - this is starting to feel more like an ego trip on your part and less like a genuine conversation about the topic at hand. You're using your position as an album director - which you've always done an excellent job of - as a threat/ultimatum for your voice to have more weight than the many other voices who have chimed in. Do you think that's right? Also, do you think of them as "my projects" - or are they community projects? Would you ask your participating artists to vote first, before making such a unilateral decision - the VERY type of decision you are accusing US of making? Would you at least talk it over with them - what they wanted - as we are attempting to do now? What does "pull everything down" even mean? Do you feel, at this juncture, that there is a single other artist who agrees with your views in full, as you have been presenting them in this thread? Can you summon the artists you've talked to and who would agree with what you're writing, the threats you're making, your decision to ignore our responses, etc., and have them explain why they agree with these actions, and confirm that they indeed do? This conversation is ongoing; if you're going to make it about you by threatening this type of thing, and you think that's appropriate, I'm very disappointed.

@Liontamer can confirm but I think the "worst" that's happened is that some of our videos hit up against content match because they were licensed commercially elsewhere.

Which "uploads"? What are you referring to, exactly? It's not clear... submissions from albums that are approved & posted have always been presented alongside banner ads... do those count as uploads? Or by "uploads" are you specifically talking about videos? Would they be opting out of web ads, too? We've historically never offered that option. Would it just be YouTube, or any streaming service? What if it's a collab, and two artists disagree? I don't think this would be a per-submission thing, but rather a per-artist - you contact us, you opt out, we flag your profile accordingly.... but the other questions would need to be answered as well. Brandon, at this juncture I feel like you're either not reading anything @zircon writes, or not processing it, or trolling, or.... I don't know. Publishers would never give their carte blanche approval for anything & everything to do be done with their IP. That's not how lawyers think. If we asked most publishers whether fan art of ANY kind should exist, or rather CAN exist according to their official policy, the answer is going to be no. This is true regardless of whether we ran any ads at all, whether we sold any shirts, whether we were an individual or a collective, whether we are a 501c3 or not. You keep reiterating bizarre, outlandish points as if they made sense... "illegal music ring"? What, like a drug ring? Again, as @zircon has painstakingly laid out, YT ads are not fundamentally different from a legal perspective than web ads in terms of supporting the community. You seem to be consistently ignoring this point and/or avoiding engaging with it, and you keep beating the "illegal" drum when that particular drum hurts the ENTIRETY of fan art, from fan fiction, to fan arrangements, to fan illustrations, regardless of this specific topic pertaining to YT ads. I'd like to think it'll be around forever, and 501c3 status is part of laying that foundation - it's decoupled from me, personally, so that if I get hit by a meteor or just die of natural causes or become too feeble to meaningfully contribute, it's NOT a sole proprietorship LLC whose legal & fiscal governance rest solely with me. Here's a good link: http://info.legalzoom.com/money-dissolving-501c3-21769.html "When a 501(c)(3) dissolves, the organization must settle all outstanding liabilities and distribute any leftover funds according to the provision set in its charter." So 501c3 status will FORCE us to codify what happens if things needed to be shut down. Right now we've got no such policy, and even if we did, the accounts would still all be in my name, and it could be messy... 501c3 gives us a formal structure to build policies around that address this question and many others.

Neither do I, w/ regard to a plain language TL:DR; section that focuses on examples and what not.. if the actual substance/meaning were to change, then that wouldn't be retroactive, and managing the crossover point becomes logistically taxing, but just updating with practical examples & clarifications does seem fine. It's on the table more now than it's ever been in the past, and yes, we intend to proceed and make it happen this year. I've been looking at something like this website, which may make things cheaper for us. First things first, we need a FEIN. Some of these things take time just due to the paperwork involved, but it's long overdue and I'll be more comfortable with everything when it's done. Is this one of those things where you *want* to be banned?

Alright, I think I'm caught up on the thread. I want to respond to the above comment from @Garde first because I've already apologized, and while apologies are nice, the simple fact that I made one at all DOES indicate that I agree that this could potentially have been handled better... ideally, our "experiment" would have been shorter, and we would have stuck with the original plan to make an announcement after the first week, kick off a discussion, and time that to coincide with 501c3 filing status and/or updated artist pages, where we hope to emphasize artist promotion more. Filing for 501c3 means having at least SOME of your ducks in a row, and while @Chimpazilla put some materials together that I've reviewed, most of my OCR time these days is consumed with posting mixes, coordinating albums, and trying to work on several different projects to improve the site, all at the same time. I'm not going to lie, being a father of two has affected the time I can devote to OCR, but I'm still doing everything I can. We were always intending to discuss this with artists BEFORE enabling the back catalog, and I want to emphasize this... the number of videos on our channel with ads enabled right now is less than half a percent of the total videos. That's not an explanation for not telling anyone about the experiment (which is more about observing the effects in a normal context), but it does hopefully support & make clear that our intention was to wait for this conversation to take place BEFORE enabling 99.5% of the rest of the videos. It might FEEL like back-pedaling... I get that, I do... but if you think about this point, and actually believe we were never going to tell anyone, then why have we NOT yet enabled ads on 99.5% of the videos? Okay, I did want to clear that up, because at least on the surface it's a legit point. Now, the current concerns seem to break down along these lines, with the following explanations: This isn't right, because OCR staff shouldn't make money off the mixes. We don't; our 2007 content policy stipulates how funds will be used (site operation and promotion), and banner ads have been in place for over a decade. Artists should have been informed prior to ANY videos being enabled with ads. We apologize for this being a surprise, but we DID want to observe the impact of ads for a small percentage of mixes in a neutral setting before discussing this with artists and then, eventually, enable it for 99.5% of the rest of the videos... we also wanted to time that discussion/announcement with 501c3 filing, which in retrospect has delayed things for too long. YouTube ads are different from website ads because they feel different, play before the actual music, are embedded, etc. A video ad IS different from a website ad in terms of the medium, but the end result is often the same. Having to "skip" an ad CAN feel more intrusive - which is exactly why we wanted to monitor the impact with a "test batch"...our observations have been that very few noticed or were adversely affected by this change. It's worth noting that we do not enable "unskippable" ads, and NEVER will. They are Satan. We've also never enabled certain types of website ads that are more obnoxious - "pop-unders" and full-page timed skippable things.... uhh, because we hate them. YouTube ads aren't covered by the current content policy, or it's not clear. When we worked with artists back in 2007 on our content policy, we very intentionally tried to make it "future-proof" by using flexible language, where it made sense. Regarding ads, we used the phrase "advertisements presented in the context of submitted material" - I personally feel that is clear enough to convey that we were NOT just talking about banner ads on websites, that it meant ads could be presented before, after, alongside mixes in a video, on a stream, or on whatever technology the future throws our way - VR, 3D, augmented reality, whatever. Who wants a policy that's out of date every time a new & relevant technology comes out? Nevertheless, it has been proposed that the content policy should be modified to clarify this point. This would not be a modification of substance/meaning, simply one of enhancing the clarity with real-world examples. I think this could definitely make sense. YouTube ads expose OCR and/or artists to additional legal risk. First off, you should know that I've poured tens of thousands hours into OCR and will thus always seek to protect it. I do appreciate the concern, but I don't appreciate the idea that I would somehow intentionally pursue a reckless course of action just to enhance revenue potential to support site operations. As @zircon has repeatedly indicated, YouTube makes it very easy for IP owners to assert their rights without going through traditional legal channels, and this happens quite often. OCR should be more transparent about how it handles its finances. The best thing we can do right now is get the 501c3 ball rolling. As many have pointed out, a 501c3 organization can still be corrupt, can still compensate its employees, etc. - simply having this status doesn't mean we couldn't be the evil, maniacally deceptive people that @Brandon Strader suspects But it's a good faith step in the right direction, it will involve something kinda-sorta like an audit to attain, and it will lay a foundation for decoupling OCR from, well.... me. Right now we're a sole proprietorship LLC, and while all OCR funds are kept in separate accounts, those are still MY accounts, and it all ends up on MY taxes. Attaining this status may actually be rather expensive for us, so when people ask what on earth we could possibly need a budget surplus for, this type of thing is a great example. It's also worth mentioning that while most of the cost is upfront, there is also a cost associated with MAINTAINING 501c3 status from year to year. I think that covers everything. If people feel the above six points are incomplete, I'll be updating this post with anything additional that isn't covered.