djpretzel

Wesley is nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide good people.

See, you guys brought this up... I personally am happy to discuss the policy on matters of principle, as much as possible, as opposed to the track record of removals to date. But, since you seem to think the relatively low number can be "spun" against the current removal policy, let me spin it another way for you: There have been a very low number of removal requests to date, and all of them have been for personal reasons with little thought given to the implications. This suggests to me not that the amount of work involved with removals is minimal, as you would infer, but rather that the number of people who want to remove their mixes is relatively small, and doesn't need to be "catered" to, seeing as the rationale for removal to date has been 100% in the aforementioned categories, none of which we've indicated are persuasive. If there were tons of removals, I'd say it was a huge workload. Since there've been a relatively low number, I'll instead say that it represents a niche request that has to date been motivated almost entirely by purely personal agendas. Either way, looking at the track record of removal requests to date is a non-starter for me. The bottom line is that a SINGLE request, if timed right, could pose a major burden, depending on what else we're doing and what we've published/promoted to date. Looking at the past is the wrong way of addressing this policy... you wanted to, so I humored you a bit and pointed out how the low number of requests can be used as an argument on either side, but frankly, we're enacting a policy because we want to move the site forward, introduce new avenues of distribution, promotion, etc., and basing a forward-looking policy on... the past... seems highly counterintuitive. Granted, those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it, but in this instance, the precedent isn't in any way compelling, conclusive, or applicable. At this point, I simply know that we want to. I don't know about specific timetables, release frequency, etc. - all of those things are highly contextual. Trying to build a policy that took into account the phase of the moon, the amount of funds we had to work with, the price of tea in China, and how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop doesn't really sound effective: release intervals for things like that should be something we shouldn't have to worry about, since we're expending site funds to promote the music of those who submit. A policy that created arbitrary connections between that type of promotion and mix removals would tie our hands to do the types of things that, in general, are what motivated trying to introduce said policy at this point in time in the first place.

Why does the frequency of removal requests to date have anything to do with this policy whatsoever? Explain that to me and we'll discuss that topic. As for this: We'll be pursuing distribution of as many mixes as possible on physical medium soon after the policy is in effect, so... isn't this almost entirely moot? Please don't criticize me for not entertaining suggestions/compromises that would almost certainly be either moot or improbable...

I can't see potentially questionable motivations for supporting the policy if you're a troublemaker, whereas the opposite seems not only possible but probable. As for your first point, we're unfortunately not dealing with issues of pure scientific reason here... there's a human element to it... if Einstein had killed my parents, to use one of a couple of analogies in your post that are kind of problematic to begin with, his theories would still be as sound, but I wouldn't necessarily trust him on matters of policy, which revolved to some extent around personal beliefs. Another problematic analogy; why do we need to come up with bogus, far-detached analogies when I've already said I view posting mixes as analogous to physical album releases? Releasing a physical album is a lot closer to posting a ReMix than getting married is, and yes, if you want the ad-hoc ability to disassociate your music with anything, at any time, doing a physical album release would be a bad idea. So it's not "specious at best" - rather, your marriage analogy is, in addition to being unnecessary in light of previous discussion. It's not a courtesy to facilitate discourtesy to others. Removing a mix affects a number of people, not just little old me. We've covered this... the amount of work put in by a number of people to evaluate and promote mixes is increasing, not decreasing, and listeners as well spend a good amount of time quite often critiquing mixes. It's not courtesy to put one individual's interests against the interests of a group, especially when that individual is saying they shouldn't even need a reason. We've covered this. Again, I really hate to be blunt here, but: we've covered this. For reasons previously stated and reiterated and danced around by those saying we're so "unwilling" to compromise, even as we've been changing substantive portions of the document to better reflect mixers' wishes. A policy that is more restrictive on ad-hoc removal lets us pursue outlets like last.fm or physical media distribution without the fear of a workload associated with having to undo/modify aspects of that distribution after the fact. Dead horse: we've covered this. When someone removes something they gave to the community, which judges evaluated with the assumption it'd become part of the site forever, listeners reviewed assuming their reviews would be part of their contribution to the site forever, and site staff pursued distribution and promotional opportunities assuming said music would again be part of the site for as long as applicable, and they suddenly want to remove that music.... it's both personal and practical. Period. There's no avoiding it. To not question the motives of an action that moots hours of work and affects many would simply be stupid. We're not the "boss" of "them": under the revised policy, we won't be able to remove their music for any old reason, they're allowed to distribute their music elsewhere as they see fit, they don't need to visit the site ever again, etc.... but at the same time, they're not the "boss" of "us": we won't remove mixes, along with all the work that went into their evaluation, posting, promotion, distribution, and reviewing, because they don't like the shade of orange we're using on our hyperlinks. Nevermind that it's really less of an "us" and "them" thing to begin with, and that most of the site staff are mixers themselves, and some mixers will at some point likely become site staff... One more time, with conviction: we've covered this.

Absolutely. I do sorta want to avoid rehashing issues that have already been raised, but there wouldn't be much point to calling it a draft if it wasn't going to be revised, and the same group that's been revising it (indirectly - and doing a great job) should continue to be involved. That's everybody.

The policy will apply to projects. In order to become an official OCR site project, the policy must be agreed to by every contributing artist. We will attempt to attain policy agreements from past projects, to whatever extent that is possible. The policy itself won't spell out anything specific to projects; since it refers to "materials", this is broad enough already. The project guidelines at http://www.ocremix.org/info/Album_Project_Guidelines will be modified once the policy has been finalized to refer to them as part of the process. Actually, I asked Lawrence Lessig himself about that, and got this response: Pretty much. Even if it were possible, CC isn't *exactly* what we're looking for. Sure, we could build on it, but it appears Lessig himself rules CC out, and he probably knows it better than us, I'd hope A few things: As far as your first point, as to removal reasons, I'd agree that the policy is one-sided in that it allows mix removal for pretty much ANY reason. I intend to rewrite that to be more limited. A third draft is on the way. It will limit removal reasons on our part to requests by the copyright owner or violations of the submission policy. Note that the submission policy changes, however, and is not carved in stone... this is unfortunate, but at the very least it would mean that we couldn't just remove mixes willy nilly unless there was SOMETHING in the submission policy that indicated as such. As far as a significant portion of the community objecting, that's subjective. In a certain sense, even ONE person objecting is "significant"... in another sense, coming up with a policy that would please everyone and their grandma is probably impossible. Some of the "significant" objectors are people that have other beefs with us in the first place... I might add that, if you're trying to make an argument based on reason, your own behavior on our forums with regards to moderators seriously damages your credibility in my book. If you want to be taken seriously, take others seriously... golden rule, you know? As far as being "associated" with something... that's just weak. We're doing a substantial amount of work to evaluate and post each mix. If you don't wanna be "associated" with something... guess what: don't release any of your music, anywhere. If you think OCR is some sort of service that it is your RIGHT to submit music to and revoke at your whim, this policy is flatly stating otherwise; some people seem to not only understand, but support, that notion. Perhaps the modification to the policy that we can't just remove mixes for any reason we like will address your major concerns and that'll describe you as well. That's one compromise that's been proposed and which I think makes sense. But if you want to sit around waiting until we've made every compromise possible, and you can submit a piece, remove it, submit again under a different name, etc. and otherwise take advantage of the work that myself and the site staff and everyone else puts in... don't hold your breath. To everyone else, my apologies for not resurrecting this sooner; it's June 2nd, and I've been AWOL in terms of discussing the proposed compromises. Let me state my general frame of mind: I'm prepared, as stated above, to make it harder for OCR to remove an artist's mixes. I agree that the policy as written is lopsided in giving arbitrary removal to one side and almost none to the other. Seeing as I hate removing mixes, and only wish to do so if the submission standards have clearly been violated, this isn't a big "sacrifice", but it does address a certain unfairness in the current draft. I'm still not persuaded to formalize any sort of "cooling off" period or intermittent policy freeze periods where artists would reaffirm their mixes existence on the site. My reasons are as follows: It's more work. Sorry, just being frank.... devote seven years of your youth to a website and then see where you stand on issues like these It sacrifices/dilutes the positive aspects of the policy that will benefit many for the reassurance of the few. There still have been no concrete examples of 100% persuasive removal reasons. herograw can say that we shouldn't need a reason all he wants, but frankly... we do. Period. Prophecy has kindly provided a legal analysis of some of the wording that I need to look over; I don't think it will affect the substance of the policy, but it may. As it stands now, the following changes will be made in the third draft, which hopefully will be final: OCR won't be able to remove mixes for any old reason; copyright owner requests and submission standards violations will be the only two reasons. Accreditation exceptions for live performances will be clarified. General legal rewording and clarification. The 2nd draft has been moved to http://www.ocremix.org/info/Content_Policy so we can track changes using Wiki functionality. This will be its permanent resting place, but it is still in draft form. I will be working on the wording and should have a third draft out sometime this weekend. Afterwards, we can discuss any remaining issues, but if the removal aspect is still the focus and the compromise regarding limiting OCR's removal options does not satisfy some, we will probably have to move ahead and finalize regardless.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

We'll be extending the discussion with the goal of revising into a final policy on or before June 2nd.

Awesome. How many boxes for how long, out of curiosity? Any GPUs?

We aren't them and I don't want us to be.

Correction: we have to shut the faucet off FOR you. And it's several faucets. And they're a pain in the ass to shut off. And we're not getting paid. And we probably wouldn't have gone to all the work to turn the faucets on for you in the first place if we'd known you were just gonna turn around and have us do all this work to shut them off. See the difference? And even if we shut them all off, in reality, there's still gonna be seepage, because tens of thousands of people will have your mix, tagged with OCR, and will redistribute ad infinitum. Even with hard drive crashes, library changes, and all that other stuff, and especially if we've already distributed promotional DVD-ROMs en masse. Nice try, but the point stands, and it was a weak metaphor to begin with since it likened mix removal to the relatively simple act of turning off a faucet... I hate to put it like this, but you're dancing around some of the points that have already been made multiple times, by different people, and I'm not sure what that's going to accomplish... I consider it ethically reprehensible to remove an arrangement of someone else's music from a free hosting service, which offered free evaluation, criticism, hosting, distribution, and community review, for almost any reason. Compyfox's hypothetical amazing album deal is one of the only potential exceptions. I think I've already made the point that there's "ethical reprehensibility" on either side of this equation.... multiple times... but heck, I'll do it again.

Would it change your vote if this weren't the case, and we could only remove your mix if we found that it violated submission standards, or due to a cease & desist? The "reasons including but not limited to" does indeed suggest that we could remove it if we just felt like it... in actuality, for the same reasons that we don't want to facilitate removal, we wouldn't do so. If more assurance from us that we won't just remove your mix for whatever reason we choose would actually change your vote, let us know. It's worded open-ended because there may be reasons we'd want to remove a mix by someone that we haven't thought of... for example, if someone tried to DDoS us repeatedly, we probably wouldn't want their music on our site, etc.

Voted - who cares who they're opening for, or - heck - even if you like them. It's recognition for game music, so I'm for it. And they happen to rock.

While feedback is appreciated regardless, it's pretty clear that, like you yourself say, you didn't read all the posts. There are more concerns governing the introduction of this policy and, in my mind, necessitating it than simply "wow, this seems like a good idea", and we've taken a good bit of time already to refine it from its previous incarnation.

We wouldn't be matching spite with spite, we'd be matching spite with a calm response that protected the site's best interests and the interests of staff, other ReMixers, and listeners, all of whom contribute to the site and could potentially be affected by mix removal in one way or another. Your calling us "silly" and "petty" only confirms my impression that you're one of the individuals that already have spite towards us, are influenced by this attitude in your evaluation of this policy, and would be unlikely to submit additional material whether or not this policy was even being discussed. Is that wholly inaccurate?

Yes, that sounds about right. Regarding your previous comments about good faith - since I can't think of legitimate causes for removal, I don't know what we would be specifying good faith regarding. As for existing mixers/mixes, once finalized, in addition to requiring the policy for new submissions, I plan on actively asking existing mixers to agree to it for all of their works. If they decline, their works do not fall under the policy unless they submit something new, and remain on the site. However, there will be distribution/promotional opportunities that those mixers/mixes will not be a part of unless they sign the policy; for example, having mixes played before and after the Video Games Live event, having mixes distributed on free DVD-ROMs to members of the press, etc. So there's incentive for agreeing, even if you're never going to submit anything ever again.

I'll respond to the latest comments as soon as possible, but in the interim wanted to mention that we've unbanned Protricity so that he can provide feedback, since the policy would affect him and his numerous ReMixes.

Abstaining is fine, and I understand your rationale, but we do want as much feedback as possible before the poll closes, so hopefully you'll still chime in with a vote before the cutoff. Your help in clarifying the policy as written to date has been very valuable, by the way - thanks. I honestly don't believe what we're trying to do is "illegal" in any way, shape, or form. The citations of the specific wording that we're now using involving "non-exclusive, irrevocable, sub-licensable" etc. is pretty boiler plate and appears to be in common usage on various sites, including all of Disney's sites. Not that we want to aspire to the same levels of Draconian legalese that Disney tends to, you understand, just that I'd imagine they have ample lawyers advising them and wouldn't attempt themselves to implement an illegal policy, or one which wouldn't stand up in court. That's another point that needs to be made: the policy itself really can't be "illegal" until: We enact it Someone agrees to it That person objects to it after the fact Their objection is not reconcilable with us They initiate legal action against us Said legal action goes to court, and last but not least... A judge finds our license unenforceable and thus null and void... ... after which the policy itself would still not be "illegal", but enforcing it would be... Now, raise your hands if you think any of that is *actually* going to happen in the first place... Yeah, I didn't think so. Your point about principle is taken to heart, but again, I feel it's a matter of principle to keep to your word and to contribute free music, in this case arrangements of someone else's music, without too many strings attached. Yes, this policy is trying to cut some of those strings forceably instead of taking things on faith, but in a situation where a mixer wants something removed and we've spent hours evaluating it, posting it, promoting it, and others have spent time reviewing it, there's no way to get any of that back. There's principle involved on either end of the equation, but since we're the ones writing a policy and not the other way around, and since "principle" doesn't translate to this type of document that well (at all), we're taking this step. I feel pretty strongly on this issue, and many seem cool with it, but like you I'm interested in seeing objections. The issue of mix removal seems to be the biggest sticking point, but still no one's persuaded me that there are excellent, legitimate reasons to want to remove a mix. Even if there were, I'm not sure they'd persuade me, seeing as we're still leaving the door open to removal, we're just saying the decision is ours, but since there aren't (for me at least), I'm waiting for someone to come up with something...

I'd counter that that argument can be used in the other direction - OCR can't earn money from an artist's work, so there are no compelling arguments to remove it, since no fiscal loss is being incurred. Our non-economic desire to retain distribution rights has been covered in the discussion thread, FYI.

As written, it's vague, but that'll definitely be added. The sticking point for most seems to be mix removal. We're interested in ReMixes being played in MORE locations/contexts, not less, so if this issue is your primary sticking point, please vote in favor. The only reason I'm not modifying the draft right now is because there's a moratorium while voting takes place; afterwards language will be added that clearly allows accreditation exceptions for certain types of performances.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

Note that my intention was to still have most of the discussion take place back on the other thread, and that this thread was for voting and explaining "disagree" votes... but what the heck: Regarding playback at Otakon or for a gymnastics class, the policy should be rewritten to specifically require accreditation for public performances. I don't think either would qualify as a public space, but I'm not 100% sure. I'll look into this.

Well, it's not really necessary - we won't and can't just go changing the policy willy-nilly after you agree to it, anyways. What you agree to when you submit will be the current version of the policy, always. If you're talking about some OTHER aspect of the site's functionality, it's a legit concern, but the Submission Agreement and Terms of Use are covered by the nature of agreements - we can't modify them after the fact without asking you all over again if you agree. We will store the policy in our Wiki and all edits will be tracked so that mixers and staff alike can see what the policy looked like at any specific point in time. So if you agreed to the policy, submitted a mix, and afterwards we changed the policy to require that you donate your spleen along with every submission, you'd be cool. As long as you didn't submit anything after this modification was made. Any major edits would be accompanied by announcements, but you could always see what's been modified on the Wiki, once it's there. Yes, this means that every time you submit, you might want to verify that the policy hasn't changed markedly, but we'll embed that reminder into the submission standards themselves to help remind you.

I'm pretty comfortable with the revised draft and have started a poll to gauge current sentiment towards it, as previously mentioned. We can continue to discuss it here but no modifications will be made until the poll has closed. If only minor additional points have been introduced, beyond already stated concerns, and the poll indicates that a sufficient majority are OK with it, then we'll proceed with finalizing it. Otherwise, we'll extend the 5/27 deadline for feedback and continue discussing the major concerns. I don't have an exact figure for how the poll would have to breakdown in order for us to proceed; I'd hope for at least an 80/20 split, more like 90/10, but the nature of the explanations being made for each "disagree" vote will also factor in.