Sagnewshreds

@djpretzel @zircon @JJT
Well shit. Thats sucks. I don't know what happened or what was said but for someone who has given a lot of time to this community and then be cutoff is rough. Hopefully bridges can mend in the future, but its nice that you guys want to keep this going. I also do hope that @OA @Sam Ascher-Weiss can get back on the project cause I was rather looking forward to their tracks. 
 
I appreciate Brandon and his hard work but lets move forward and see this through for the community. We're all welcome to release our music elsewhere but contributing together is what makes it special here.

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.

So the last constructive part of the YT monetization thread was that mixers were letting djp/OCR that they were fine with OCR running ads on the YouTube videos with their mixes. This, so that OCR could gather more data on the effects of enabling ads. The thread was closed because the discussion got WAY out of hand, but since Dave said he would appreciate if we opted in, this thread is relevant in my eyes.
Just to make it clear: THIS THREAD IS NOT MEANT FOR DICSUSSION
Just state here if OCR can use your mixes for this test run. And obviously, I opt in

Whoa huge bummer to see how he broke down like that and it got to the point of a perma ban . I was hoping things would just kind of mellow out after a bit. The entire time I was reading his posts on that thread I just kept thinking about how I hope the album projects stay in tact. I'm definitely still in, but still need to get a WIP together for my claim. Is the September 12th deadline still a thing?
I will also probably need some help/guidance when it comes to mixing/mastering/anything production related for my track. I'm not so good at that stuff as arranging and playing are my specialties (still new to the whole recording aspect of music) and Brandon was going to do that for me. If anybody wants to mix my track that'd be rad  probably won't be necessary for at least a few months.

I should really find some way to get there this year...

I'll cause a scene if you don't go

Most of what I have to say has been said already. I was initially against monetizing YT vids, but after reading @djpretzel's pretty well thought out explanations and responses I'm on board with what's happening. I think filing for the 501c3 is going to be great for OCR. I still think ads in the videos is kind of intrusive in the same way that popup ads are, but I am not fundamentally or ethically opposed to them (would prefer ads on the video page). I'm all for OCR generating more than just the bare revenue it needs to maintain itself. More revenue funneling back into OCR would mean more growth which I think is a good thing.
More promotion, more resources for album projects, eventually a better website with more features, being able to pay for the 501c3 stuff, having "oh shit" money just in case something bad happens (something unexpected will happen down the line, and as someone who has also led various organizations in the past I can say that having backup funds is a tremendous help), I can name countless reasons why making more money than just the basic operating/hosting costs of the website is a good thing. It seems to me that DJP and the staff put a shitload of personal unpaid time into OCR so there's no reason for me to believe that they'd be doing shady things to pocket the 190ish dollars that have been made from YT revenue so far. Hell, most non profits even pay their employees. I wouldn't give a shit if the staff had a small paycheck for the amount of time they put in. Honestly I don't give a shit about any of that stuff unless a lot of money is being generated. But I don't see video game remixes making enough money for me to even care about shady stuff. DJP can pay for his trip to MAGFest on OCR's dime for the sake of promotion and buy himself some Nando's and that's fine with me.
When it comes to theshizz, they are definitely an unruly and polarizingly opinionated bunch, but they are awesome people. For the most part, it's an amazing community and some of my best friends are shizzies. Hell, a ton of OCR folks post on there like @zykO. Most of them are rad and a ton of good comes from that community, like DoD and all of the kick ass bands who post on there. I think a good few of the old school shizzies have fundamental philosophical differences with OCR when it comes to VGM stuff, but who gives a shit? That doesn't matter. There were some anti-OCR posts in general on that shizz thread, but I think most of the people who weighed in on this topic really don't care what OCR does with monetizing YT vids, myself included honestly. I'm fine with ads or no ads. Do what you need to do to run the site and I trust the staff's judgment for the most part. I will say though that YouTube is the main way I consume content from OCR and that if certain artists who disagree with the content policy were to take their remixes off of YT, I would probably forget to ever download and listen to them in the first place. So I hope that doesn't happen  Seems like some compromising has been made in the last pages of posts though.
@Brandon Strader said some pretty out there things a few pages ago, but I think it's really good for the community at large that he brought this discussion up. Seems like a lot came out of it when all is said and done (at least one somewhat direct result of it being that there now seems to be an urgency for filing the 501c3 stuff). Judging by his posts, it seems like he'll always have a disagreement with what is going on with the YT advertisement stuff. However hyperbolic some of his responses were, I hope he comes around and doesn't leave OCR entirely so he can continue to be a positive force in the community with all the kick ass work he's been doing on album projects (and regular remixes). Oh and to his credit, whenever I saw him link to this thread outside of here, he seemed to present it in a reasonable way (he shared his more opinionated views on the topic not in the same posts as linking to the thread).
Also if OCR ever enables un-skippable ads I will cause a god damn scene.

Most of what I have to say has been said already. I was initially against monetizing YT vids, but after reading @djpretzel's pretty well thought out explanations and responses I'm on board with what's happening. I think filing for the 501c3 is going to be great for OCR. I still think ads in the videos is kind of intrusive in the same way that popup ads are, but I am not fundamentally or ethically opposed to them (would prefer ads on the video page). I'm all for OCR generating more than just the bare revenue it needs to maintain itself. More revenue funneling back into OCR would mean more growth which I think is a good thing.
More promotion, more resources for album projects, eventually a better website with more features, being able to pay for the 501c3 stuff, having "oh shit" money just in case something bad happens (something unexpected will happen down the line, and as someone who has also led various organizations in the past I can say that having backup funds is a tremendous help), I can name countless reasons why making more money than just the basic operating/hosting costs of the website is a good thing. It seems to me that DJP and the staff put a shitload of personal unpaid time into OCR so there's no reason for me to believe that they'd be doing shady things to pocket the 190ish dollars that have been made from YT revenue so far. Hell, most non profits even pay their employees. I wouldn't give a shit if the staff had a small paycheck for the amount of time they put in. Honestly I don't give a shit about any of that stuff unless a lot of money is being generated. But I don't see video game remixes making enough money for me to even care about shady stuff. DJP can pay for his trip to MAGFest on OCR's dime for the sake of promotion and buy himself some Nando's and that's fine with me.
When it comes to theshizz, they are definitely an unruly and polarizingly opinionated bunch, but they are awesome people. For the most part, it's an amazing community and some of my best friends are shizzies. Hell, a ton of OCR folks post on there like @zykO. Most of them are rad and a ton of good comes from that community, like DoD and all of the kick ass bands who post on there. I think a good few of the old school shizzies have fundamental philosophical differences with OCR when it comes to VGM stuff, but who gives a shit? That doesn't matter. There were some anti-OCR posts in general on that shizz thread, but I think most of the people who weighed in on this topic really don't care what OCR does with monetizing YT vids, myself included honestly. I'm fine with ads or no ads. Do what you need to do to run the site and I trust the staff's judgment for the most part. I will say though that YouTube is the main way I consume content from OCR and that if certain artists who disagree with the content policy were to take their remixes off of YT, I would probably forget to ever download and listen to them in the first place. So I hope that doesn't happen  Seems like some compromising has been made in the last pages of posts though.
@Brandon Strader said some pretty out there things a few pages ago, but I think it's really good for the community at large that he brought this discussion up. Seems like a lot came out of it when all is said and done (at least one somewhat direct result of it being that there now seems to be an urgency for filing the 501c3 stuff). Judging by his posts, it seems like he'll always have a disagreement with what is going on with the YT advertisement stuff. However hyperbolic some of his responses were, I hope he comes around and doesn't leave OCR entirely so he can continue to be a positive force in the community with all the kick ass work he's been doing on album projects (and regular remixes). Oh and to his credit, whenever I saw him link to this thread outside of here, he seemed to present it in a reasonable way (he shared his more opinionated views on the topic not in the same posts as linking to the thread).
Also if OCR ever enables un-skippable ads I will cause a god damn scene.

The purpose of this thread is to give people a clear idea of how OCR operates, how revenue is generated (and where that revenue goes), and the relationship between OCR, its operations, and the people that contribute to it.

Is content on OCR licensed?

No. We do not license the ReMixes distributed on our site (and through channels like YouTube). (There is one exception, which is described below.)

Why aren't the remixes licensed?

It's simply impossible to do this for several reasons.

1. Mechanical licensing via the compulsory licensing permission (the one that does not require publisher permission) requires that the source material be published commercially in the United States prior to licensing. Many remixes on the site are of source material never released in soundtrack form in the US, therefore they cannot be licensed.

2. Even if the music could be licensed, since OCR is founded on the concept of distributing music for free, it would be impossible to support the massive licensing costs necessary for all remixes on the site. To use some napkin math: assume 3400 remixes are each downloaded 100 times per month, which is a gross under-estimate. At 9.1 cents per copy downloaded, this would require licensing fees of over $30,000 a month - for downloads alone.
3. No established license mechanism could cover free downloads of MP3s and ad-supported streaming. Compulsory mechanical licensing only covers downloadable copies; as a result, custom licensing agreements would need to be made with every publisher (which they could simply reject, unlike a compulsory license.)

For total emphasis, there is no conceivable way that the content on OCR could be licensed, and especially not while remaining compatible with the site goal of distributing free music.

Does that mean OCR is illegal or infringing copyright?

By default, any use of copyrighted material without express permission of the copyright holder is considered infringement. However, US copyright law makes provisions for "fair use" of copyrighted material as a defense to infringement in a court of law. Fair use is the legal principle that allows for things like educational usage, commentary, parody, and satire, among other uses. While fair use cannot be established except in a court of law, and there are no strict guidelines allowing anyone to decide whether a use is fair or not outside of the court system, it's possible to make an educated guess as to whether a use is fair or not.

This educated guess is based on an evaluation of the factors evaluated for determining fair use, and precedent. The biggest of these factors are whether a work is transformative, and whether it is 'commercial'. These are both loose and nebulous terms, but that being said, our strongly-held belief (reinforced by the belief of consulted legal counsel) is that OCR's distribution of fan-created arrangements for non-commercial educational purposes is fair use. This has been discussed at length in other posts but suffice it to say that when analyzing all these factors, we've made a very strong case for this if a court case were ever to happen.
Isn't it worse to upload music to YouTube, especially if it's monetized?
No. If fair use applies to OCR's activities, it would certainly extend to YouTube. If it doesn't apply, then the site's current activities (on and off YouTube) would be considered infringement, in which case it's a moot point.
YouTube is actually a better place to address issues of infringement than elsewhere, because Google provides content creators with several tools: the ability to claim a video (which grants the publisher/claimaint all further revenue from the video) or issue a takedown. Both of these would not entangle either party in the court system, as Google/YouTube mediates any disputes, avoiding a costly legal battle. In short, we'd much rather defend ourselves to YouTube, ON YouTube, with the assistance of YouTube specialists who have extensive experience in copyright disputes.
Also, keep in mind that on YouTube (and off), a creator can claim infringement regardless of whether someone is generating revenue from a work or not. My own personal experience with YouTube claims and takedowns has exclusively been with un-monetized videos. In short, if a publisher took issue with OCR, not running YouTube ads would not protect us in any way.
Does OCR generate revenue from its content?

Yes. Since the early 2000s, ocremix.org has run ads throughout the site. Other revenue is generated from sales of OCR merchandise (not music; music on the site is not sold commercially) such as t-shirts and hoodies. Within the last few years, OCR launched a Patreon page which also generates revenue. Ads were also enabled on <1% of videos on OCR's YouTube channel from June-August 2016 for testing purposes, which has also generated a small amount of revenue. Until OCR officially becomes a registered non-profit organization, and YouTube ads are discussed further with the community, YouTube ads will only be served on the videos of ReMixers who have given OCR their explicit permission.

Why does OCR need to generate revenue?

OCR as a website has technical costs, such as the cost of a dedicated server, mirrors, and bandwidth. These expenses are necessary for the basic operation of the site. Revenue is also needed to create promotional materials for the site: that includes merchandise like t-shirts and hoodies, as well as strictly-promotional physical copies of album projects. (These promotional physical albums are not sold, and the content on them is available for free on ocremix.org. They are given away at conventions). OCR has also been attending conventions such as Otakon, MAGFest, and PAX (among any others) to evangelize video game music, promote recent album releases, and give away free stuff. Expenses directly related to OCR panels at these conventions (such as technical equipment needed for panels) are sometimes covered by OCR as an organization.

There are also many plans for the organization that require revenue to achieve. For example, the OCR YouTube video template has not been updated in many years and looks dated. We're in the process of commissioning custom visualization software to produce better-looking videos strictly for the enjoyment of viewers and fans. Also, we're looking to obtain true non-profit organization status, which we believe will take a substantial amount of money to file and maintain properly.

Where does surplus revenue go?

For a long time, there was no surplus revenue. Expenses were often paid out of pocket by Dave and other staff. Now that revenue is exceeding expenses, the revenue... isn't going anywhere. It's staying in OCR's accounts until it is used for purposes like those described above. The aforementioned non-profit filing process will likely take most if not all saved money.

So is OCR a non-profit organization?
From our submission agreement: OCR legally cannot distribute submitted materials for for-profit endeavors. Furthermore, OCR is legally bound to spend any revenue on costs directly associated with operation and promotion of OverClocked ReMix.
However, OCR as an entity does not have true non-profit status - 501(c)(3) - which is why achieving that official status is a major goal.
Are any ReMixers or site staff paid for their work?

No. Nobody has been paid for their work contributing to the site either as a remixer, staff member, or administrator, djp included.
(Fine print: OCR has released one commercial album, For Everlasting Peace: 25 Years of Mega Man, as an officially licensed release in partnership with Capcom, with Capcom retaining ownership of the music. ReMixers were paid for this release, which was licensed directly with the publisher. This music is not available on the site and was not submitted through the normal channels, so it's an outlier.)
Will ReMixers ever be paid?
Not for regular submissions to the site, which are distributed for free. Not only would the logistical overhead be unmanageable, but it would invalidate our fair use case, as it would be impossible to justify those payments as necessary to the direct operation of the site as a non-profit entity. However, we'll continue to explore separate licensed projects like MM25, or officially licensed commercial albums through our sister site OverClocked Records. We view these as separate from the core work that OCR does: distributing and evangelizing free music.
Will site staff ever be paid?
There is absolutely no plan to do this, nor has it been seriously discussed among site staff in all years of operation. It's conceivable that it could happen someday, after 501(c)(3) status is achieved and we're complying with all regulations for transparency, corporate bylaws, etc. djpretzel wants there to be a plan for the site should anything ever happen to him, and operating a 501(c)(3) will require more administrative duties for things like bookkeeping and accounting. Again, if it were to ever happen, it would be executed properly to the letter as per federal guidelines for non-profit organizations and in full compliance with our own legally binding submission agreement.
Is there anything to prevent revenue from being distributed as profit to staff now?!

Of course. Just because OCR is not a 501(c)(3) yet does not mean our submission agreement isn't legally binding: it is. And that agreement, which applies to OCR as an organization, strictly limits how revenue can be used. Again, site staff have never been paid nor are there any plans to do so.

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 don't remember if I actually said that, did I? Cause if I did that way crosses any line, by no means would I compare OCR or its staff to Crooked Hillary
And no I've had this sig for ... a while
This also very much satisfies me, and if monetization occurred while these steps were planned to be taken then I should be fine with it too. 
If anyone's right now saying "I support this" to spite me, maybe my intentions weren't expressed properly, but hopefully nobody's actually doing that. 

I'll be holding you to this, djp. The first time I play an OCR Youtube video/playlist and see that goddamned 15 second auto insurance commercial about the "perfect record" pop up, I will stomp my feet and be very irked. And you wouldn't like me when I'm irked. I get all big, green and puffy.

I'd be really bummed if the FF3 and FF8 albums became non OCR projects  and I think a lot of people contributing to them might have been contributing to them specifically because they wanted to be involved with OCR. (When it comes to my remixes personally, I'm still usually down to be on whatever albums I have time for so I wouldn't drop my tracks but I'd still sub them to the panel probably). 

I'd be really bummed if the FF3 and FF8 albums became non OCR projects  and I think a lot of people contributing to them might have been contributing to them specifically because they wanted to be involved with OCR. (When it comes to my remixes personally, I'm still usually down to be on whatever albums I have time for so I wouldn't drop my tracks but I'd still sub them to the panel probably). 

I'd be really bummed if the FF3 and FF8 albums became non OCR projects  and I think a lot of people contributing to them might have been contributing to them specifically because they wanted to be involved with OCR. (When it comes to my remixes personally, I'm still usually down to be on whatever albums I have time for so I wouldn't drop my tracks but I'd still sub them to the panel probably). 

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.

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.
 

This was kind of a depressing read (the fighting/bickering).
As to the topic itself - I think @Chimpazilla's suggestions make the most sense to me. I do see where @Neblix is coming from (and can see myself agreeing on most points he makes), but at the same time, my thoughts still all end up to: if a mix of mine can help the site in any little way, I'm for it. 
(Maybe part of the negativity stems from a few bruised egos regarding seeing actual money being made from their music (that is not going their way).) The transparency aspect is one thing I have latched on mentally, but it's mostly because I found out about all this from @Brandon Strader's Facebook post (after, from what I have gleaned here - it running for two months?).
I'm not sure how I feel about it or if I can put the thoughts together coherently. But, I do appreciate @djpretzel taking the time to make his posts (and for the other points made by everyone). Maybe the nagging sensation on my end comes from how the policy language was wide enough to draw out things people never quite expected to happen?

It'll all go into my presidential campaign super pac.
The Coop 2032! Make America WTF again!

Youtube ads aren't nearly as intrusive as shitty forum signatures.

I think along with Chimpazilla's suggestions, OCR should probably step on filing the 501c3 designation. I think in light of the discomfort of revenue streams it would make it crystal clear that it's non-profit in any potential legal-related scuffle.

Here's the main question that everyone's avoiding:
Why are you remixing video game music?
Honestly, the only valid answer to this should be: to honor great melodies, games and composers, and to make people who also like those melodies, games or composers a bit happier, while learning new things about making music in the process.
Sure, people may not always like what you're doing, but there are some people who will like it. And those few people who like it are what makes doing remixes worth it.
So, if somebody is making a little bit of money off my music, which is then used to help my music get to more people who may like it, I won't have any problem with that.
 
Nobody here except for ocremix itself should be concerned with any legal issues. Your songs won't disappear if ocremix gets shut down. Your songs are already on millions of computers all over the world. Drink some tea and stop bitching.

This is how I feel about the "situation":
I was initially opposed to the idea of YouTube monetization, because, as Chimpazilla stated, it feels like specific mixes are making money for OCR instead of the community. It doesn't feel like OCR itself is generating the revenue (like they do with ads on their site), but rather that the artists are generating revenue for them. 
The other point I have/had is that these ads feel much more intrusive and lessen the experience of listening to mixes - which is a bad thing obviously. Zircon asked the question before if we thought ads on the side/bottom were any different that pre-play ads, and I think it would make a big difference. At least for me it would, because you can let people enjoy the mixes the same as before.
However, if the last option isn't really viable then, after reading the discussion, I'm on board with OCR. We are always inherently against change, because we know and trust what was before. Even though it's pointed out that legally and ethically the YouTube plan isn't really different, it's new and different from what we know. But the situation is different as well: if OCR wants to be assured of having a stable and constant revenue stream, things like this are necessary now (since the forum ads don't cut it anymore, as has been stated). 
To go even further: I hope OCR is looking towards generating even more revenue, so it can grow even further. The bigger the site/network grows, the more it can show off our awesome mixes and visit events. I mean, the whole point of the Patron deal was to help OCR grow, so why are people opposites to the fact that the revenue is more than the costs now? As long as it's used to help grow OCR, I think it's great

As long as the money goes to the production of 3 more Vampire Variations albums, I'm fine.
 
Nah really, I'm like @DusK, I don't care that much.

i'll likely go...