OC ReMix on Spotify?

[Naminu]

Hi!

I really want to be able to listen to OcRemix on Spotify.

Who makes that decission? Can we just ask them to add all OcRemixes to their library?

[Liontamer]

Someone send an invite to admin@ocremix.org and let's see if we can get something going. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Naminu]

A blogger-friend of mine: http://www.stianandreassen.com/2008/12/29/you-can-has-spotify/

(norwegian site) - gives out invitation-tokens to anyone.

Just grab one from there.

[Skummel Maske]

A great idea, I'm not sure how big Spotify is in the US yet, but it's huge in Europe. It must be a great way of reaching out. I read an article about it in the papers a little while ago, and it said that the reason they'd made it big was because they landed contracts with major labels early on. I'm sure they want more content, so both parts will benefit from it.

Also, you might want to check this page, Larry.

[Naminu]

Hi.

Spotify is a big thing in many european countries, but isn't available in the US yet. I asked the forum a couple of months ago if anyone could try and contact Spotify and get OCR available there, but nothing happened.

But I have a different question this time.

Which OC-artists are on Spotify now? (With other songs than OCR obviously.) I've found zircon and pixietricks. (playing jillian goldin right now.) But are there any other OC-artist out there?

[Yogarine]

Over a year later and still no OC ReMix on spotify. That's a shame! What needs to be done to get OC ReMix on Spotify?

[Anti-Syne]

Does spotify not work on labels? i.e. a label agrees to let all the music it owns be put up on spotify. I really dont have a clue how the legal side of OCR works, but it would need to be it's own record label to get music up on spotify.

or, i may be completely wrong...

[Yogarine]

I found this page on their site:

http://www.spotify.com/nl/work-with-us/labels-and-artists/

"The quickest way for a new label to get its music onto Spotify is to contact a record label or aggregator that already has an agreement and delivery process in place with Spotify. We have a complete list of aggregators we work with."

Here you can find the list of aggregators:

http://www.spotify.com/nl/work-with-us/labels-and-artists/aggregators/

[Bahamut]

There might be some legal barriers to it I'd suspect.

[WillRock]

Afaik, Spotify only has music thats commercially available. As OC Remix's music is free, it might not be allowed to be put it in its database.

[Naminu]

Spotify is finaly launching in the US.

http://www.spotify.com/us/

I hope someone in the OCRemix-staff can try once more to get OCRemixes out there...

[Yogarine]

Sorry for bumping this really old post, but I want to kinda make a statement, so bare with me.
Also forgive me if this has been discussed in some other thread on this forum. I did search a bit, both here on the forum as on Google, and didn't find anything on the first few pages (except for this topic).

Anyway, I remember reading this exact thread back in 2010. Now it's 2016 and there is simply no excuse why these songs wouldn't be available on Spotify, Apple Music and/or any of the other hundred streaming services out there. The Submission Agreement specifically states that OC Remix is free to distribute the music where ever it wants. And the income they would make from the plays on these streaming services would go to the operation & promotion of the site.

So, seriously, why hasn't this happened yet? Is it some philosophical or religious choice? Are you trying to make a statement? Or are you guys just plain lazy?

Whatever the reason, I thought the mission of this site was to appreciate and promote video game music as an art form. But by ignoring what is quickly becoming the most popular channel to consume music for tens of millions of people, you're really missing out on a big opportunity to make good on that promise.

Also please don't underestimate the discoverability of music on Spotify & other streaming services. There are many, many indie music artist that I would have never found if it weren't for Spotify. (Marc Papeghin, Rare Candy and Brentalfloss being a few prime examples of mine)

So, time to set this record straight. Or at least give me a satisfying reason I can't listen to OC Remix on Spotify yet.

[DarkeSword]

5 hours ago, Yogarine said:

Now it's 2016 and there is simply no excuse why these songs wouldn't be available on Spotify, Apple Music and/or any of the other hundred streaming services out there. The Submission Agreement specifically states that OC Remix is free to distribute the music where ever it wants.

Sure there is. Here's the excuse:

OCR's catalog is primarily comprised of unlicensed fan arrangements. Spotify doesn't allow unlicensed fan arrangements.

Our Submission Agreement is an agreement made with people who submit their music to us. It means that artists are okay with whatever distribution channels we decide and are able to pursue, like physical CDs, Soundcloud, or YouTube. The Submission Agreement doesn't protect us from a company like Square Enix or Konami looking at all of the unlicensed Final Fantasy and Castlevania remixes on Spotify and saying "shut it all down."

In a perfect world we'd be able to distribute OCR's catalog on every streaming service under the sun, but that's not really the case. OCR is unlicensed fan work. The only way OCR gets on Spotify is if we're able to obtain a license for every track in the catalog. That's just not going to happen; that's literally years of work that is quite honestly not worth the return on investment.

5 hours ago, Yogarine said:

So, seriously, why hasn't this happened yet? Is it some philosophical or religious choice? Are you trying to make a statement? Or are you guys just plain lazy?

I guess we're just plain lazy.

[Nabeel Ansari]

6 hours ago, Yogarine said:

Sorry for bumping this really old post, but I want to kinda make a statement, so bare with me.
Also forgive me if this has been discussed in some other thread on this forum. I did search a bit, both here on the forum as on Google, and didn't find anything on the first few pages (except for this topic).

Anyway, I remember reading this exact thread back in 2010. Now it's 2016 and there is simply no excuse why these songs wouldn't be available on Spotify, Apple Music and/or any of the other hundred streaming services out there. The Submission Agreement specifically states that OC Remix is free to distribute the music where ever it wants. And the income they would make from the plays on these streaming services would go to the operation & promotion of the site.

So, seriously, why hasn't this happened yet? Is it some philosophical or religious choice? Are you trying to make a statement? Or are you guys just plain lazy?

Whatever the reason, I thought the mission of this site was to appreciate and promote video game music as an art form. But by ignoring what is quickly becoming the most popular channel to consume music for tens of millions of people, you're really missing out on a big opportunity to make good on that promise.

Also please don't underestimate the discoverability of music on Spotify & other streaming services. There are many, many indie music artist that I would have never found if it weren't for Spotify. (Marc Papeghin, Rare Candy and Brentalfloss being a few prime examples of mine)

So, time to set this record straight. Or at least give me a satisfying reason I can't listen to OC Remix on Spotify yet.

Do you understand anything about the music industry? Streaming revenue? Copyright law?

Also, do you understand anything about inquiry? Don't load your question with a bunch of predicted counter-arguments. It's rude, and fallacious. If you want to know something, ask a question.

We know what Spotify is. We weren't born yesterday. :/

[Nutritious]

The yin-yang of the Ansari brothers on perfect display

[Yogarine]

Sorry if I came across overly critical. It's mostly been the lack of a good explanation and also lack of sleep that was frustrating me. My apologies. Also, thanks for the informative response DarkeSword.

That being said, Spotify, Apple Music & co. are full of fan arrangements. Actually, I've become so used to finding and listening fan arrangements of games on Spotify that the idea that licensing would be an issue didn't even cross my mind.

And there are publishing services like Loudr that actually take care of the licensing part for you. So I think that with some moderate amount of effort it would very well be possible to release the OC Remix catalog on streaming music services like Spotify and Apple Music.

Where there is a will there is a way.

Oh, and I'm actually quite familiar with copyright law, and I realize that unlicensed arrangements are somewhat of a legal grey area. But if your idea is to keep flying under the radar to prevent being noticed I believe you're really still not staying true to your mission.

[timaeus222]

Well, although the "mission" is partly to promote VGM, it doesn't seem worth it to try licensing literally thousands of source tunes to publish OC ReMixes on commercial streaming services. Plus, OCR has been known as a non-profit organization. Even when the money goes towards managing the site and so on, that appears less clear when money is involved.

[DarkeSword]

8 hours ago, Yogarine said:

That being said, Spotify, Apple Music & co. are full of fan arrangements. Actually, I've become so used to finding and listening fan arrangements of games on Spotify that the idea that licensing would be an issue didn't even cross my mind.

And there are publishing services like Loudr that actually take care of the licensing part for you. So I think that with some moderate amount of effort it would very well be possible to release the OC Remix catalog on streaming music services like Spotify and Apple Music.

Where there is a will there is a way.

Oh, and I'm actually quite familiar with copyright law, and I realize that unlicensed arrangements are somewhat of a legal grey area. But if your idea is to keep flying under the radar to prevent being noticed I believe you're really still not staying true to your mission.

Two things: first, you're severely underestimating the amount of work involved in obtaining licensing for the entire catalog of OC ReMix. We have nearly 1000 games represented in the catalog of individually posted remixes. We're well aware of Loudr and what they do, and even relying on an external service would still require too much work to obtain licensing for every last remix. This is not a "moderate amount of effort."

Second, and more importantly: stop invoking the site's mission to make your case. Here's our mission:

• Appreciate and honor video game composers and their music
• Encourage artistic expression and development through fan arrangements
• Preserve and promote video game music of the past and present
• Provide resources and connections for the game composers of tomorrow
• Distribute great, free music to the world

The last point seems to be what you're hung up on. But here's the thing:

• We provide free direct and torrent downloads of all of our music.
• We have every individual ReMix posted in full to our YouTube channel (~112K subscribers).
• We post all of our albums to Soundcloud (~7K Followers)
• We promote all of our music on Twitter (~28K Followers) and Facebook (~53K Likes).
• We go to conventions and events throughout the year (upcoming: Otakon next weekend, PAX West and MAGLabs in Sept, etc.) to do panels and give out CDs.

We're doing a great job of staying true to our mission. Would Spotify be a nice way to capture more listeners? Sure. But don't pretend for a second that not having the music on Spotify means we aren't doing our job. This is not about us doing our job well, this is about your convenience.

This thread was made 6 years ago. We didn't forget about Spotify. We're not ignorant of the modern streaming landscape and how it's evolved over the years. We've evaluated these venues and made the determination that it's not worth pursuing. There are better uses of our limited time; time that, by the way, none of us are compensated for.

[Liontamer]

17 minutes ago, DarkeSword said:

We have nearly 1000 games represented in the catalog of individually posted remixes. We're well aware of Loudr and what they do, and even relying on an external service would still require too much work to obtain licensing for every last remix. This is not a "moderate amount of effort."

It's more about source tunes than even the number of games. Just a rough check it our database puts the current amount of different songs that have been referenced in OC ReMixes at 2,689 songs. We're definitely not going through that.  

[Flexstyle]

Plus, Loudr will only be able to license songs that have seen a physical release here in the USA. Something as iconic as, say, even the Punch Out theme doesn't count -- I know because I released an album that had to drop a song before it could be released. It's not a magical, one-size-fits all solution -- you can immediately forget about most of the slightly more obscure games that the OCR catalog is filled with!

[Nabeel Ansari]

11 hours ago, Yogarine said:

That being said, Spotify, Apple Music & co. are full of fan arrangements. Actually, I've become so used to finding and listening fan arrangements of games on Spotify that the idea that licensing would be an issue didn't even cross my mind.

And there are publishing services like Loudr that actually take care of the licensing part for you. So I think that with some moderate amount of effort it would very well be possible to release the OC Remix catalog on streaming music services like Spotify and Apple Music.

Where there is a will there is a way.

Oh, and I'm actually quite familiar with copyright law, and I realize that unlicensed arrangements are somewhat of a legal grey area. But if your idea is to keep flying under the radar to prevent being noticed I believe you're really still not staying true to your mission.

1) They are full of licensed fan arrangements. Just because the distinction doesn't cross your mind doesn't mean there isn't a clear legal difference.

2) Loudr does not have the resources to license the entire catalog of source tunes that OCR pulls from in any reasonable timeframe, assuming it was even possible using their methods, which it isn't as @Flexstyle said. Loudr is run by like 20 people. And they're not gonna dedicate their company's resources for the next few years to getting all of OCR's catalog able to be streamed. They would get nothing out of it.

3) There is no will, nor are there resources or infrastructure, and there is no way.

4) Unlicensed arrangements aren't a "legal grey area", it is copyright infringement, and when monetizing for commercial profit has 0% chance of being defended as Fair Use (this is according to the SCOTUS). No one's "flying under the radar", and we're not trying to "prevent being noticed". Everyone (nintendo, square enix, sega, capcom, etc.) knows about OCR, and they let us continue, because all of our community output is free and voluntary.

5) Generating revenue based on the work of hundreds and hundreds of artists and putting it "toward the site" is one of the most terrifying recipes for legal nightmares I've ever heard of.

If you are so certain that you have the right answers on how to benefit the community and are so sure that setting up the required financial and legal infrastructure for all of these efforts is "moderate effort" (it's not), then stop whining and contact DJP directly to talk about getting involved with the community and get these efforts going yourself.

[Liontamer]

Just so this doesn't turn into a total dogpile due to the initial tone of the complaint...

To defend Yogarine's overall intent, I don't react to his suggestion as if it's an all or nothing scenario required; if there were some way that could work out to get some OC ReMixes on Spotify, that would be great, and we've thought about it. However, like DarkeSword said, it's still time and energy we collectively don't have. Also, I believe that many VGM arrangements available on music services are actually unlicensed and there just isn't enough oversight.

[Gario]

I personally vouch for someone developing another streaming service that's dedicated to OCR music, so that we don't need to deal with the legal stuff involved in streaming.

qwertymoto, come back, plz...

[Nabeel Ansari]

1 hour ago, Gario said:

I personally vouch for someone developing another streaming service that's dedicated to OCR music, so that we don't need to deal with the legal stuff involved in streaming.

qwertymoto, come back, plz...

The entire point of getting it on Apple Music/Spotify is to reach a wider audience. Making an OCR Stream Service doesn't do anything to reach new people, because people who know about the OCR Stream Service find about it through... OCR.

[Yogarine]

22 hours ago, DarkeSword said:

We're doing a great job of staying true to our mission. Would Spotify be a nice way to capture more listeners? Sure. But don't pretend for a second that not having the music on Spotify means we aren't doing our job. This is not about us doing our job well, this is about your convenience.

This thread was made 6 years ago. We didn't forget about Spotify. We're not ignorant of the modern streaming landscape and how it's evolved over the years. We've evaluated these venues and made the determination that it's not worth pursuing. There are better uses of our limited time; time that, by the way, none of us are compensated for.

First of all I'd like to apologise. I never wanted to even insinuate that you guys aren't doing a great job. Because you guys _are_ doing a great job. I probably should have formulated that differently. (Or not at all.) I also realise that you're all volunteers, and I respect the effort that you're putting into this (or the fact that you're even taking the time to read and respond to my posts, since I'm a relative outsider).

What really gets to me, though, is the apparent "all or nothing" mentality of these responses, as Liontamer mentions. (Thanks Liontamer!)

It's been stupid of me to not point this out specifically, but I never intended for _all_ of the OC Remix catalogue to be put on streaming services. Maybe some day, if possible, yes. But surely not initially. I was mostly considering the album projects. I mean, albums like Voices of the Lifestream would be pretty safe bets as they are easily licensed through, for example, Loudr (only one game per album for most of them), and from what I've seen Square Enix doesn't really make a big fuss about fan arrangements.

I mean, OC ReMix could start out posting just the albums on streaming services every week or month or [insert random timeframe here]. Starting with either Kong in Concert, which, from what I gather, would be easily licensable, or Relics of the Chozo if it's possible to license it. Or, of course, if you're feeling adventurous, just upload it rogue. (There are plenty of Super Metroid fan arrangements on Spotify already, so either they got successfully licensed or Nintendo just doesn't seem to care. But I assume OC ReMix respects the original copyright holders sufficiently to not post unlicensed songs.) From there you just continue on, trying to get as many albums on there as possible. That _would_ constitute a moderate amount of effort.

So yeah, baby steps. Just having a handful of OC ReMix albums on there would already be awesome. I would never expect anyone to undertake a complete "get all OC ReMix songs on streaming services"-project in one go. That's would be an insane amount of work. But I can't stand it when people just write of an idea all together without exploring all the options. There is almost always room for concessions. Just keep in mind this is not a black or white situation. I still believe OC ReMix could and should extend their songs to Spotify.

Also, let me make this clear: this has nothing to do with convenience for me personally. I have both an iTunes Match and Apple Music subscription. So every time new songs or abums come out on OC ReMix I just download them and drag them into iTunes and I'm set. I have all OC ReMix songs available to me where ever I go and I can listen them alongside all the songs on Apple Music, so I don't even need to switch app to listen to one or the other.

The colleagues, friends and loved ones that I wish to share music with, however, aren't all as proficient with their computer or smartphone as I am. Neither can I expect them to pay for an iTunes Match subscription, or set up a Plex Media Server, etc. Practically all of them use Spotify, however, so if I just send them a link to an album on Spotify the barrier for getting them to listen to these songs is greatly reduced. Also for a lot of fans like me it serves as additional confirmation of their music tastes not being just this obscure underground thing. This may sound ridiculous to some of you, but I am sure others can understand. 

Anyway, I really think we're getting off on the wrong foot and that is too bad. Part of this is obviously my fault because, frankly, yeah I have a big mouth and I can come across as quite arrogant when talking about subjects I'm passionate about. But I always try to push my vision of the best solution for a problem, until someone corrects me, then I re-evaluate, and push forward again. Being passionate like this works better when in personal conversation because people can better judge my reactions and I can quickly correct myself, but on forums I tend to get a hard time. So _please_ take my comments with a grain of salt. I'm not really as arrogant as I seem to be.
And I really admire the artists and volunteers that put their free time into this community. So keep up the awesome work.