Brandon Strader

Web page, ad, part of site, part of page Youtube, ad, part of video, part of music uh, uh, make fire

We know two things: OCR is making operating costs plus surplus, and OC ReMixers ARE OCR -- if ever there was a staff responsible for a site existing, it's us. Personally, I've been against money being involved since the beginning. But here we are.

This really isn't about me in any way though, and anyone who claims to know me based on my interactions on OCR - for which my morale and good will is at an all time low - is absurd, unfair, and inflammatory. I don't have OCR problems in real life, because real life has never presented the issues OCR has over the years. To suggest I have some kind of problem outside of OCR is making an assumption based on basically nothing. If the criticism is that I'm always here to call OCR out whenever they do something unethical or borderline illegal, then I wear that as a badge of honor. The same now as I did for the first iteration of the attempted FF6 Kickstarter. At any rate, my opinion has been thoroughly shared and it'd be fair to get more perspectives on the issue. There's also a post in the OCR group where some people are sharing their views. Rather than fighting with people and derailing the thread, I'll step out so others can share their opinion, and I'd recommend the same to anyone not contributing.

I've not always been like this, OCR made me like this, and they know it. Also if your only contribution to the conversation is to insult me you can fuck right off.

Hmm, that might be a fair question for staff to reflect on. Why have the remixers to date made their remixes? Was it because they love the music and making it, or because they someday wanted staff to go behind their back and decide to start making money from it without telling or asking anyone? Fair question Ivan. You say nobody but OCR should worry about legal issues, but the content policy clearly pushes liability onto the remixer. As such we have a duty to have this discussion, and you dismissing it as bitching is doing everyone, including yourself, a disservice.

Do the terms say that advertisements can be placed on the music, or that the music can be used in advertisements? I posit that it's not clear, and therefore a lot of this conversation happening right now is kind of moot

I don't think "remixes are generating revenue to promote more listening and more remixes" has ever been or ever will be accurate. OCR making money from remixes is not going to inspire artists to make more remixes, if anything it might do the opposite. Do you know what might have promoted more listening and more remixes? Improving the site. Improving the stock youtube video. Refreshing the site staff. Improving the quality and usability of the site and making the download button less convoluted. Having better relations with the public and having the humility to admit when you have wronged them, and try to make it right. A lot of things would go farther in promoting the site and the music than sneaking ads onto the music. Give people a reason to come to OCR and visit or share the youtube channel. This is the same thing I say every time you guys hatch your latest money-making scheme, but you never listen. Focus on the artists and site first.

I'd like to point out that they never announced it, and they aren't testing it on "part of the catalog". They enabled monetizing on June 13th and it has applied to every new remix that has been uploaded. Apparently if I hadn't have noticed, they might not have ever told anyone or questioned it. 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. So from my perspective this is really fucked up and so far hasn't been getting any better. I'm even dissatisfied at them suggesting this thread should be used for conversation about the topic. Nobody checks the forums, this is not a valid way to have this discussion. The most regular 20 people who still use the site is not at all a valid or reasonable statistic to base such a change on.

Burrito bowls were an option? Now I'm mad A lot of your points hinge on them getting 501c3 status, and that's fine.. you said they were thinking of doing it a couple years ago--I don't know how long it takes to actually do it, but I think doing it first would have been the more ethical option here. Rather than trying to do it after stuff was already monetized. Reminds me a lot of the FF6 kickstarter situation....

I just sent out the message -- groups of 5 people at a time, that was pretty.... inconvenient. Dunno why it wouldn't just let me send it to everyone. Anyway, we have our first casualty. Sam Ascher-Weiss, aka Shnabubula, drops The Castle. I guess he knew he wouldn't be able to cut the mustard within a month, despite sitting on his claim for almost 8 months. Let's see if we can get something big and epic to replace it! OA dropped Ride On, the difficult airship theme that is really upbeat

I get that you think you're solid from a legal standpoint, but you haven't said much about the ethical standpoint, or how this will affect visibility.. as well I feel that the explanation of how much will actually be monetized has not been touched upon and people have been left flailing in the wind just making assumptions. For example, are projects never going to be monetized nor the youtube upload associated with them? And trailers? If albums and trailers didn't get monetized at any point I'd still be comfortable recruiting for albums and not have to worry about trying to explain to people from outside OCR how their music would be used to generate income. This comment shouldn't be taken as acceptance of course, just seeking information, trying to pick up the pieces after this TRAGEDY that has been unleashed... Furthermore nobody has said whether we will be able to opt out of monetization. I don't think any number of complaints would change your minds, so I'm looking towards the future now.

I might have been more open to this after an audit, but since it was hidden from us for 2 months, there is no way I will ever support this regardless of an audit. It's really really hard to recruit for projects, one of the "selling points" i make is that it's a not-for-profit fan album that wont make any money, and sometimes that makes people comfortable about contributing.

They didn't even want pictures of characters used as mascots. I think Square needs to wander around these parts again to keep people in line, because they clearly didn't learn from the mistakes of the past.

Prove that it's libel and I'll concede the point. I don't care how offended you get. It's only a false statement if anyone proves it's false. It's speculation based on past evidence. While OCR's content policy say it has the right to release the content on other sites, it does not specify what is allowed to happen to our content after they put it on another site. There's nothing in there about adding advertisements to the music on other websites. The content policy is only binding between us and OCR, not us and youtube. I made no agreement with youtube via ocr.

Why do people who dislike President Trump refuse to move to Mexico? I guess we'll never know.

So legally OCR has to be sued for us to find out... ok, now what about the other side of the argument, remixers who didn't want their remixes put up for profit? The fact that it was done 2 months ago against anyone's consent and in private, and enough money has already been made that you've been mailed a check. How does OCR intend to address or fix that situation? How many complaints exactly is it going to take before you guys realize you've hurt your reputation and trust, and step back from doing this?

They give different lengths of sentences for prison depending on the seriousness of the crime. This isn't like the Bible where all sin is equal.

If the best argument for whether it's legally viable is that OCR hasn't been sued yet, is the only answer we can get that will satisfy us is for OCR to be sued? Do we need to start contacting publishers telling them what OCR is doing just so we can get closure on the issue? Since when is the MO of OCR to push as far as possible without getting sued to see how far it can go towards profiting? I remember when the site used to be about vgm. There's a distinct lack of respect for the remixers, who are the bread and butter, who made OCR what it is and allowed you to weasel your money out of the site and community. Without the remixers OCR is nothing and is worth NOTHING. Do not forget that.

Have we seen evidence of OCR being better? A friend on facebook earlier said it still looks like 1999. Do we have any evidence of the youtube videos being better, or are they still the very old 360p template?

Are we still discussing how it's illegal, or how illegal it is? Nobody seems to care about them going behind our backs 2 months ago to start profiting from the music. People disagree with me that the trust is broken, that's fine.. After all these years I'm not as accepting as I used to be of behavior like that, especially recently. While I won't retract any assertion until seeing proof, I'll concede that the more important point right now to get an answer on is how they intend to make their misstep into illegality right, and then read their apology. I'd also like to point out I'm still against the music being monetized -- I'd like it taken off of mine, at the very least. It'll get taken off 1 way or another. Also any and all album projects I have done or will do, I do not want monetized. I didn't ask any of the contributors or publishers if they were ok with it, and I do not intend to ever have that conversation.

It's not a conspiracy theory when their go-to excuse for everything unethical they do is "we're not being paid" Ask yourself really, why they need so many hundreds of dollars above operating costs, if it's not going into keeping the site running.

It's not impossible to prove, it just involves transparency and being responsible.. maybe impossible for specific people, but not in general. We need an audit, we need someone to go over the financials, and the horrors within need to be disclosed. Chimpazilla already offered to help, and nobody responded to her. What are they hiding? 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. I found out about this monetization because I saw that zircon had retweeted my Chrono Cross mix. I know he hates me, and there had to be a reason he would have done that. And there it is -- a Chrono Cross mix will make more money.

Nope. I only believe evidence now. The fact that the monetization is still up is troubling. I do not endorse or approve of this monetization, nor do I accept any form of legal liability regardless of the content policy. I do not agree to that policy or endorse it. Legal liability rests 100% with OCR and its staff.

Do you have proof of this? Can you prove that site staff is not being paid? Is there some confusion between OCR itself and the site staff, let's clarify this -- OCR the site is non-profit, but the staff is not, correct? If that's not the case, can proof be provided that neither the site nor the staff is for-profit? As mentioned earlier we're far beyond taking the staff's word for it. I wouldn't trust someone who went behind my back 2 months ago to try to exploit me or my work. Were sales of Super Cart not too good? That's unfortunate.

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. We've never at any point been given any proof, and when the site owner says "Hahah I made money from your song for 2 months and didn't think you'd notice!" then we have a serious problem here. Disregarding the unethical and potentially illegal aspect of them profiting off of the music itself, there's been a distinct lack of respect for me or any remixer involved in the site whenever there's an issue of money or us being exploited for financial gain. "We're not being paid" stopped being a valid or trustworthy excuse for this exploitation a long time ago. I'm going to assume from now on that each staff member is making a fair amount of income from the site. In my view, here's what needs to happen -- the monetization needs taken off, the songs that were sold need to be licensed or at the very least contact the publishers and offer to pay for what is owed. If you have anything left, divide it equally and send it to the remixers. Formally apologize to the community (you can add this to the other apology I've been hounding you guys about) for exploiting them for a period of 2 months and already cashing the paycheck without even thinking of notifying anyone about it. Stop ignoring people when they advise you against doing stuff that will kill the site. A lack of complaint isn't consent. Try defending that in court. This is your notice to stop using this thin argument, djp. We need an audit of the site. I saw that Chimpazilla has offered generously to help you with things, I suggest you either take her up on it or pay an active firm to do it. There is no respect from a site that starts secretly profiting from the work of artists they've basically never supported. I'd say things need to change but I'm afraid it might already be too late. We're submitting to OCR, not Youtube. Your content policy doesn't stretch to youtube usage. Your own policy prohibits you from doing what you did, profiting from the music on youtube, and to top it all off, at no point in the content policy does it say "OCR reserves the right to use submitted music for for-profit or advertising purposes." Even if it did, it would cover using the music in an advertisement, not to use an advertisement in the music. You made it clear that the money you're collecting now is above and beyond the operating costs which are already fulfilled by the patreon. There's also a link to the patreon at the top of each mixpost page. That was already unethical enough, but you just had to go a step farther. I look forward to the "Support this artist" button on each mixpost that goes directly into site staff pockets.