Jason Covenant

I wouldn't worry about it. Two reasons: The government typically doesn't take actions like these unless they are lobbied to do so. OCR distributes derivative works without direct compensation. OCR is operating within its legal rights.

Happy Thanksgiving! Have an awesome four days off! Double weekend all the way!

Cool. Was nice meeting some of you, however briefly.

Congrats TheoConfidor. I must be really lucky to get seven remixes of my song. Anyhoo, here's my reviews/reasons for votes: 1. GLL: 9/10 Cons: Vocals aren't fit well to the beat. Mix lacks overall volume and punch. First half feels a little confused. A bit of mud in some places - nothing too extreme though. Pros: The vocal melody in the second half is SOO catchy. If you'd built the rest of the song around that theme, you would've had a much stronger entry. The singing is good. The synths range from decent to fantastic. Good use of transitions. Ultimately, I picked your mix for #1 because the harmonies you used in the second half surprised me (in a good way). I'm rearranging this same piece myself for live performance for a local ensemble - needless to say, I've explored a lot of the possible harmonic combinations and themes - but apparently not all. =) 2. TheoConfidor 9/10 Cons: Didn't care for the intro. The mix begs for London-style mixing but gets soul crushing aural uniformity instead. The guitar clashes with the other frequencies a bit too much. The low end seems neglected. Pros: Absolutely masterful use of transitions - the highlight of the piece imho. The guitar just sounds plain awesome when it's playing the main melody. High quality samples. Good arrangement overall. Never loses its momentum. 3. rationaljeff 8.8/10 Cons: The fx in the intro were cheesy compared to the rest of the mix. Mixing lacked punch - even for an easy listening-style song. The second half seems a little underdeveloped - like it should be building to something - then it just sorta fades out. I think it should've been longer, or had a shorter intro and then cut off sooners. As it is, it's kinda of in limbo between two structural concepts. Pros: This song is so listenable (after the intro) it's not even funny. I'm honored that you chose my humble midi as your first remix. The mix is well balanced and the arrangement is fantastic. I will listen to this even after the compo. Seriously. (Though I may edit out the intro) Ok, that's my 1st, 2nd, 3rd places. You have no idea how hard it was to pick these. 4. (tie) Brainstar 8.7/10 Cons: A few weak harmonies that dragged the rest of the mix down. Mixing seemed a little sloppy for live instruments. Muddy low mids. Cheesy strings. Pros: Great atmosphere. When I first heard this song, I assumed it would be the favorite for the compo - who would've guessed we'd have so many other great entries. I really think the horns did justice to my original vision of the song and I like the melodic liberties you take. 4. (tie) Gario 8.7/10 Cons: That arp is so cheesy I just want to reach into your mix and strangle it. To death. Or at least strangle the resonance out of it, and filter it differently or something. It just doesn't fit with the rest of the song. The clap is annoying. The choirs conflict with the fluttering synth that starts off the song. Pros: Love what you did with the bassline. The choirs really add epicness and emotional depth to the song. The song is well paced and has a logical intro. 5. Bundeslang 6/10 Cons: Not your best effort by far Bundeslang. The synths are very cheesy, but not in an endearing way. The percussion is sorely lacking. Pros: Strangely catchy... 6. setokaibarocket 3/10 Cons: Your mix seems to be missing the "song" part. Seriously, there's no melodies or vocals, just a music bed. Pros: A good start - I like the beat, but it's definitely not a complete song. Why not rap over it next time? Thanks everyone for entering! Was fun to see to many interesting remixes of my track.

Cool, so who else is entering?

I don't think any of us really developed our songs to their full potential. Oh well, there's always next time, right? Bundeslang, would it be alright if I picked a song from another popular online freeware game? Sorry to hear about your illness Gario. I can certainly relate. I'm able to hear my mix now, yay! The mids have so many eq problems and the synthetic voice has so much wrong with it. The attack is WAY too fast. When I get my voice back, maybe I can replace it with my own. Now, to pick a mix for prc 146...

Sorry GLL, I know you were probably expecting something a lot more polished than what I entered, but I got a very bad ear infection so I couldn't really hear what I was working on. Being under the influence of Vicodin didn't help either, particular those damn hallucinated flying robo sharks.

There is nothing wrong with Fruityloops. I use Fruityloops.

Just logged in for the first time in about a year. Lol, 49 unread messages. Anyways, my mix is up. If it sucks, blame gll for asking me to enter.

Links not working for me.

Ah crud, I just missed it. Seriously, seriously, seriously, get better Andrew. Appendicitis r bad mens.

Looks good to me.

If this is so, then I would recommend contacting him and asking him about it.

Since you are familiar with his style, what do you believe happened?

I was commenting on the legal status of the situation, not Tommy's style. In addition, no, I'm not really familiar with his "style". Thus, I'm not going to hypothesize the intent(s) that lead to the current situation, only provide clarity on the legal nature.

It's my understanding that it was a work-made-for-hire agreement. In other words, Tommy has every legal right to not give credit to nor compensate the remixers in any way.

Hi. I received two emails regarding this topic and have been reminded of its existence by (and prompted to participate in the discussion of) by several remembers of this board. I'm certain a reasonable agreement could be reached with or without my involvement, nevertheless, I will offer my thoughts on the subject in response to these promptings. Relevant experience: I studied copyright law in college. I had planned to take other music related courses following my studies in copyright law, but was given, to borrow and old cliche, an offer I couldn't refuse. One of my former professors hired me into his record label, largely an artist development scheme, and thus began my career. Within a month, I was involved in my first legal dispute as a fellow employee (after being forcefully removed from the company) "commandeered" a piece of intellectual property of which I was the derivative source. My employers sued and the legal battle rages to this day. After this time, the head of A&R (artist research) had to go on hiatus in order to provide important witness testimony to another dispute with a band that had employed the production efforts of the company previous to my employment, and as such I was forced to assume an A&R role to cover for his absence. In this time, I became an artists' rights advocate and consultant. My largest success of this nature was aiding an artist in escaping an overreaching (legally enslaving) clause of a contract with a major record company for which the total value of the afformentioned written agreement had been in excess of 20 million dollars. In addition, I have maintained secondary employment as a work-for-hire (not to be confused with "work made for hire" which is a legal term and has a completely different meaning) freelancer, initiating my own negotiations, subcontracting work and conducting general licensing work with various clients. As luck would have it, he is dead wrong. This is why: If you will notice in his example, the two parties in question (in regards to their relationship to the vehicle and use thereof) have not signed any legally binding agreement. A licensing contract is a legally binding agreement. If you put into writing that one relevant party has a certain right in regards to something you own, then they have that right. After all, you signed a legally binding document granting the other party a specific right. I'm not sure how this could be confused. It seems like AD is suggesting that licensing agreements don't exist. No, not really. When you sign a legally binding contract with another party, you are in essence dictating the rights that you and the other party have in regards to the relevant subject matter. This most certainly can include giving up the right to revoke permission. Incidentally, that's pretty much what a licensing agreement IS in practice. Just curious, do you have a copy of the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act handy? If you could please look up section 203, you will find the relevant portions of the law to this discussion. The most relevant portions are parts 4 and 5, which I will quote here: The first bolded text tells us (when translated into plain English) that if you want to have conditions for termination to a licensing agreement, you have to put it into the initial contract (or other relevant legally binding document). The second bolded text tells us that you can't terminate the agreement if you (or some other authority of ownership) give away that right in writing. That's what a licensing agreement is in practice. You give another party legal permission to use something you own with fixed limitations (or no limitations in a master sync agreement). If you want to be able to rescind those powers, you have to do so in the initial agreement, NOT retroactively, as you've suggested can be done, and as part 5 of Section 203 of the 1976 U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17) in particular seems to completely contradict. Of course, you don't have to take my word for it, you can read the whole thing for yourself, here: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap2.html#203 Moving on. If you're looking for something that'll "hold up", I can help. That's something I do for a living. I'd be more than happy to do a professional-grade revision of the current document, and/or, provide basic counsel on the legal options and nature of this particular instance. However, I'm a reasonably busy person and see no reason to act unless the staff of ocremix feels that my efforts are warranted. You've got Zircon on board, and as I understand it, is fully capable of performing the task of creating a basic licensing agreement. In addition, DJP mentioned possibly having access to top IP experts. Thus, I'm not certain my services would even be useful. If I were to suggest changes in the document, and they were to be enacted, the effects would be sweeping. Just using the first sentence as an example: If a third party were to sue on the premise of loss of profit due to the unauthorized use of their intellectual property in derivative and/or collaborative works, they would seize upon this phrase and beat the defense over the head with it. It could very easily be interpretted to mean that the submitter is the sole copyright holder of the submitted material. At the bare minimum, it should say, "You retain ownership and copyright of all ORIGINAL material submitted to OverClocked ReMix." I would then create a seperate clause to define the nature of "original" in the context of submitted work. When a person submits a work to OCR, they are indicating that they are owners of 100% of the SR (sound recording) and partial or non owner the arrangement in the form of collaborative work. I can speak at length with the OCR staff on the legal nature of derivative works if they are interested. As for this document, I'm pretty confident that it'll turn out fine, regardless who pens it. Besides, DJP is putting forth a great "in good faith" effort by making it available for the community to discuss/debate. We should feel lucky that he's even nice enough to do that.

Sum votes: There you have it ladies and gentlemen, a whopping three votes. The math breakdown thingy mablobber looks like this: GLL: 9 points (3 for voting) Gigs: 4 points Projekt Zero: 4 points Beige Mage: 3 points In conclusion, GLL R TEH WINNAR!!111 I'd agree. My life=too crazy to be able to keep up with these things. Talk to GLL, since he won, he gets to decide how flmc5 is run. http://www.prophetikmusic.com/FLMC/KTHX2.zip Thanks for the faith. And congrats mr. GLL! If I'm still living in this country/have time when flmc5 comes around, I may give it a whirl.

Still waiting on a lot of votes guys. Gotta break up the tie somehow............. Oh, and btw, I thought it would be prudent to give a first place vote to anyone who participated in the contest and votes. So its a free 3 points for voting.

Bundeslang: http://www.prophetikmusic.com/FLMC/FLMC4/Bundeslang%20-%20Soft%20Party.flp http://www.prophetikmusic.com/FLMC/FLMC4/Bundeslang%20-%20Soft%20Party.mp3 Giggity: http://www.prophetikmusic.com/FLMC/FLMC4/flmc4air2.flp http://www.prophetikmusic.com/FLMC/FLMC4/flmc4air2.mp3 GLL: http://www.prophetikmusic.com/FLMC/FLMC4/GLL_Brokeback_Kitty_FLMC4.zip http://www.prophetikmusic.com/FLMC/FLMC4/GLL_FLMC4_Brokeback_Kitty.mp3 ProjectZero: http://www.prophetikmusic.com/FLMC/FLMC4/ProjektZero_-_Sanitys_Final_Requiem.mp3 http://www.prophetikmusic.com/FLMC/FLMC4/SecondaryPsychosis.flp The Beige Mage: http://www.prophetikmusic.com/FLMC/FLMC4/amazingattacksquad.flp http://www.prophetikmusic.com/FLMC/FLMC4/amazingattacksquad.mp3 Download them all (or at least the mp3's if you don't have fl.) Listen to them all and send me your votes via PM. Give a first, second and third place, and include brief descriptions for your reasons for all three. Your vote should look something like this: 1. person1 - I voted his entry first cause it wurz teh bomb! 2. person2 - this is second in my book because i liek poodles and i've got bad acne and the song has decent drums but not as much as person1's song. 3. person - its like icecream and i like icecream but the other two are like cake and strawberries and i like them better and the eq needs help. Voting ends exactly two weeks from today.

So sorry. Never been busier in my life. I'll upload everything and start voting TONIGHT.

Right now........and lets say give it a week. Alright you guys have the entries I'm sure, but I'll rehost them in a tick. Also, question, before I post the entries, do you guys think we should allow beige mage in? He emailed me an entry....... or at least someone claiming to be him emailed me an entry. You guys think it's valid even though its an email?

Sorry, I've been a busy busy bee, running around like a chicken with its head cutoff, (insert animal metaphor here), etc. A couple other peoples had told me they were gonna enter, so imma extend the deadline to 11:59 pm october 2nd pacific time. I'll go bug those ppls so we can see about getting more than just 3 entries. Sound good kthx?

And I agree. What say you, bgc?