OCR monetizing mixes on YouTube

[jnWake]

I think what makes website ads different from YouTube ads is that the YouTube ones are directly linked to the artist and not much else. The only relevant part of OCReMix's YouTube uploads is the remix, which links the money directly to the artists. When the ad is on the website, it's harder to link the money to the artists and instead it feels like the money goes directly to the website.

I don't have a defined opinion about this (and only have 1 posted remix haha) but I can see why it would bother some people since this way it feels like your work is directly generating money while it didn't feel that way before.

Regarding the ads themselves, I recently listened to some of the newest remixes and didn't notice the ads. I probably had ad block though... Either way, if there are going to be ads in the videos, I feel they should be the ads that just show a message instead of those video ads that play before a video. The latter ones are obnoxious as hell.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Yes, if it is not tied to consumption, I don't mind. But there is a case to be made that since videos auto-play on page load, those ads are also tied to consumption.

It's all about traffic, and the details of why the ad revenue was generated. Was it generated because someone visited the site? Or was it generated because someone wanted to listen to my remix? In the latter case, two problems on opposite sides are that 1) i'm not being paid and 2) neither are the copyright holders for the orignal music.

[WillRock]

So when I found out about this, I was... concerned. I expressed my thought process and suggested that I might leave staff. The response from staff, long story short, was that I hadn't thought it through. Seeing this come public and having a lot of time to think this through after hearing the arguments... Yeah... I still have some issues

On one side of the argument, you have issues with copyright, and it feels a bit morally grey to be profiting directly off someone elses work. You use the website ads as an argument, but I am in the camp that you're making money directly off the music submitted to the site. People go to the youtube videos primarily to hear the music. OCR didn't create that music, it was donated by the many talented people of the VG Remixing Community. Primarily, I will repeat what Neblix said " My music is making money, why aren't I getting that money?" 

Well, I have never monetised my youtube videos of my remixes - I don't like making money of others work without going through the proper legal channels. OCR have jumped over that hoop and gone for it anyway. The fact that ocr is non-profit, imo - is irrelevant. 

 

As for the website... I feel the website is different because thats more than just the music, its a forum, the home of the community, and I am very willing to accept that people donate to keep that going as a whole.

 

That said, the money is going directly to the website. Its not making DJPs pockets any heavier with cash, and yeah... I can see that and thats fine. I guess its a question of this:  

Do you view youtube ads as OCR profiting from your music, and if so, are you ok with it? Also, are you ok with how the money is being spent?

Personally, I think it is both ethically and legally problematic. 

[Sir_NutS]

16 minutes ago, jnWake said:

I don't have a defined opinion about this (and only have 1 posted remix haha) but I can see why it would bother some people since this way it feels like your work is directly generating money while it didn't feel that way before.

This is the problem, which I mentioned before about Perception != Reality.  Regardless of what you feel, which is subjective indeed, the reality is that your work, the remixes, are what generates ocr traffic and in turn money.  Not the forums or the website itself, as those have diminished in use and relevance with the advent of social media.  I don't have the figures of course, but given forum activity I would be VERY surprised if forum activity by itself, which can be considered not related to remixes, outweights social media/youtube/soundcloud views/plays.  Whether you like it or not, or you feel like it's different or not, the reality is that what generates ocr money are the remixes, and always have.  The website used to be a vehicle for that just as how youtube and social media are the vehicles now.  Remixes were the main generators of ad money because that is the product that people visit the site for.  Just as how Music for a radio station is the product and not the radio station itself.

 

6 minutes ago, WillRock said:

On one side of the argument, you have issues with copyright, and it feels a bit morally grey to be profiting directly off someone elses work. You use the website ads as an argument, but I am in the camp that you're making money directly off the music submitted to the site. People go to the youtube videos primarily to hear the music. OCR didn't create that music, it was donated by the many talented people of the VG Remixing Community. Primarily, I will repeat what Neblix said " My music is making money, why aren't I getting that money?" 

Your music was making money before.  Ask for a check for the past years in ad revenue then.

[Nabeel Ansari]

2 minutes ago, Sir_NutS said:

This is the problem, which I mentioned before about Perception != Reality.  Regardless of what you feel, which is subjective indeed, the reality is that your work, the remixes, are what generates ocr traffic and in turn money.  Not the forums or the website itself, as those have diminished in use and relevance with the advent of social media.  I don't have the figures of course, but given forum activity I would be VERY surprised if forum activity by itself, which can be considered not related to remixes, outweights social media/youtube/soundcloud views/plays.  Whether you like it or not, or you feel like it's different or not, the reality is that what generates ocr money are the remixes, and always have.  The website used to be a vehicle for that just as how youtube and social media are the vehicles now.  Remixes were the main generators of ad money because that is the product that people visit the site for.  Just as how Music for a radio station is the product and not the radio station itself.

This is a needlessly utilitarian approach; if OCR doesn't seek to have its community members comfortable with what it does, it damages the reputation and retention of community members. Saying "it doesn't matter how you feel" is side-stepping what the issue is in the first place, which is primarily fueled by how people feel in wake of what OCR is doing now.

[Sir_NutS]

7 minutes ago, Neblix said:

This is a needlessly utilitarian approach; if OCR doesn't seek to have its community members comfortable with what it does, it damages the reputation and retention of community members. Saying "it doesn't matter how you feel" is side-stepping what the issue is in the first place.

So you chose to ignore reality in favor of a feeling to make decisions, well, I certainly don't do that;  you're entitled to do it on your own decisions.  Anyone can feel that a decision is wrong even if it goes against reason, but that doesn't mean it's the reality of it.  I for one do not care about decisions based on groundless or illogical arguments appealing to feelings as those are subjective and everyone has their own.  The fair thing is to look at things objectively and see that Remixes have provided ocr with traffic during all its tenure and are the main source of income as very few people visit the site just for the forums and that number is decreasing as is also decreasing in most communities, vg related or otherwise.

[Nabeel Ansari]

4 minutes ago, Sir_NutS said:

So you chose to ignore reality in favor of a feeling to make decisions, well, I certainly don't do that;  you're entitled to do it on your own decisions.  Anyone can feel that a decision is wrong even if it goes against reason, but that doesn't mean it's the reality of it.  I for one do not care about decisions based on groundless or illogical arguments appealing to feelings as those are subjective and everyone has their own.

Please, tell me more.

[zircon]

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On one side of the argument, you have issues with copyright, and it feels a bit morally grey to be profiting directly off someone elses work. You use the website ads as an argument, but I am in the camp that you're making money directly off the music submitted to the site. People go to the youtube videos primarily to hear the music. OCR didn't create that music, it was donated by the many talented people of the VG Remixing Community.

 

There's an argument to be made that on YouTube, they are only hearing the music *because* of OCR. Does that factor in to how you're looking at it? In other words, OCR has a pretty large audience of people who don't necessarily know artists by name, but they enjoy listening to a consistent stream of good music. So while OCR didn't create the music, it did curate and distribute it to a new audience. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, which is fine, but it's worth mentioning nonetheless. 

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Primarily, I will repeat what Neblix said " My music is making money, why aren't I getting that money?" 

 

Because it's making money for a non-profit organization, one where all staff are volunteers, and because you agreed to it in the submission agreement. If that isn't compelling, why not?

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Well, I have never monetised my youtube videos of my remixes - I don't like making money of others work without going through the proper legal channels. OCR have jumped over that hoop and gone for it anyway. The fact that ocr is non-profit, imo - is irrelevant. 

 

From a legal perspective, it makes a huge difference how and for what reason money is generated, and where that money goes. If a charity uses a track of mine to raise some money, I look at that very differently than if a for-profit corporation does. Or maybe the opposite. I might not be OK with some charities using my music, but I might be OK with some corporations using it. In any case, who/why is relevant to me. Why is it not relevant to you?

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It's all about traffic, and the details of why the ad revenue was generated. Was it generated because someone visited the site? Or was it generated because someone wanted to listen to my remix? In the latter case, two problems on opposite sides are that 1) i'm not being paid and 2) neither are the copyright holders for the orignal music.

 

On YouTube we can actually monitor that and determine how many people viewed a video because they searched for it, and how many saw it as part of a playlist or via their subscription. Is there a % you feel would be the tipping point? Like let's say 90% of views are coming from people who watched the video because it came from OCR (i.e. via subscriptions or embeds), and 10% were people searching for Neblix specifically. Is that OK? Is 50/50 OK? Legitimate question and definitely worth discussing.

[Meteo Xavier]

I'm late to the conversation, but I feel compelled to comment anyway.

I'm baffled at the extreme reactions this topic brought out in people, particularly those of you getting panties rocketed up the wazoo over not making money for your fan remixes of music.

This line sticks out to me particularly.

"Great, instead it goes to the publisher and probably some to YouTube - who can make money off a totally for fun fan arrangement I made. [...] If there is going to be money involved in fan arrangements, I'd just not bother with OCR or YouTube and licence the tracks myself."

Good lord, dude. Go check your couch cushion, you'll find your royalties there. These things, from my continued experience and reference, really don't generate people much money. You're not missing hundreds of dollars here, more likely, you're missing hundreds of cents. It's not worth getting upset over.

I'm also baffled why so many of you are opposed to Youtube's ads from a financial point of view anyway. Youtube is in the running for the most important, most used and most influential website since time began on planet Earth and has billions upon billions of videos, data exchange and much more that it never asked a penny from you to provide unless you yourself were purchasing advertising on there. Did you really think Google is doing all that for free? If Youtube wasn't doing things like that, there wouldn't be a Youtube where you'd be complaining about your lost royalties in the first place.

It's taking a fair amount of restraint for me to remain civil instead of diving into more far biting, sardonic criticism I feel is better owed to this sense of entitlement from grown ***damn adults with college-level educations. I don't get why you did something for free, without the idea it was going to directly make you money, and then suddenly change that mindset when something changes to make you think you could've directly made (not much) money from it or where that chump change is going. Is it the principle of the thing? That's just something people say when they do something knowing it's not really logical or reasonable in the first place and still want to complain. If it's copyright, Nintendo and Square-Enix and CAPCOM and Konami and NAMCO et al all know how to get a hold of us if they want. If you're worried about copyright, you best stop doing fan remixes in the first place - it's potential infringement from the first note on.

In short, I feel nothing about this warrants the criticism it's receiving. I feel this has at least some to do with my overarching thesis that composers these days are adopting an irrational, ironclad, black-and-white financial defense mechanism for any audio they do no matter the scale or how trivial it is. Very little has actually changed, so very big critical backlashes for it are unwarranted.

[jnWake]

24 minutes ago, Sir_NutS said:

This is the problem, which I mentioned before about Perception != Reality.  Regardless of what you feel, which is subjective indeed, the reality is that your work, the remixes, are what generates ocr traffic and in turn money.  Not the forums or the website itself, as those have diminished in use and relevance with the advent of social media.  I don't have the figures of course, but given forum activity I would be VERY surprised if forum activity by itself, which can be considered not related to remixes, outweights social media/youtube/soundcloud views/plays.  Whether you like it or not, or you feel like it's different or not, the reality is that what generates ocr money are the remixes, and always have.  The website used to be a vehicle for that just as how youtube and social media are the vehicles now.  Remixes were the main generators of ad money because that is the product that people visit the site for.  Just as how Music for a radio station is the product and not the radio station itself.

It is true that the appeal of the site are the remixes, denying so would be absurd. However, there are still key differences from how the YouTube approach works to how the website one does, both in perception and in how money is generated.

First is that the website links everything as a community. The website isn't just the remixes and even each remix's page has much more than just the music. Each remix has a great write-up by djp, comments made by users in the thread forum, a direct link to the artists' OCR page (which in turn links to the artists' Twitter, YouTube or whatever info that appears), links to OCR's site for the game where the sources come from (which in turn link to the composers of the source material), OCR's site for the source (which links to other remixes of the same source) and maybe more that I'm missing. The YouTube video for each remix has the video which is music plus the same video for every remix and the video's description which is pretty much the same for every remix, indicating the artist, sources and many links to OCR social media.

Second is that YouTube videos have views. Hence, there's a completely direct link between what each individual artist does and the money it generates. This distinction very clearly does not exist on the OCReMix website. When someone goes to www.ocremix.org you have no easy way of telling what the purpose of that person was. Unless you have access to Google Analytics you have no idea which remixes (or remixers) generate more traffic. And, even then, each remix's page has enough information and content that it's more than just the remix.

Perception is clearly a big part of why some people feel uncomfortable with this but you can't simply say Perception != Reality because they are not the same, regardless of how much you try to reduce it.

EDIT: Also, just in case, this isn't about me being bothered by OCR making money instead of me or anything like that. I don't make remixes for money and like supporting the site. I'm just trying to point out why this model could generate issues for users.

[Nabeel Ansari]

11 minutes ago, zircon said:

On YouTube we can actually monitor that and determine how many people viewed a video because they searched for it, and how many saw it as part of a playlist or via their subscription. Is there a % you feel would be the tipping point? Like let's say 90% of views are coming from people who watched the video because it came from OCR (i.e. via subscriptions or embeds), and 10% were people searching for Neblix specifically. Is that OK? Is 50/50 OK? Legitimate question and definitely worth discussing.

I don't think there's any ratio of "Neblix" vs. "OverClocked ReMix" that makes it passable. If a person stumbles onto a song by browsing the catalog of a record label, does that artist suddenly not get the revenue? OCR is not a record label, so the actual logistics and rules do not apply, but for the principle in question, I feel, it is an accurate analogy. Again, it's not a "why" in terms of "why is the person getting to the music", but in terms of literally and technically "why is the ad revenue transaction being logged in the system". 

We can play the game of "OCR always made money from ads because people came to the site for music", but that's not what's actually happening in terms of the system's moving parts. People are coming to the site for music, but ad revenue is generated on pages of the site which are not serving the content. The ads are alongside the content, but not a direct result of engaging the content. Whether or not I press play on the YouTube vid in the write-up page has no bearing on whether that ad revenue goes through.

On YouTube, the ads are served when the user engages the content. Going to the page of the content counts, because YouTube autoplays on load.

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Because it's making money for a non-profit organization, one where all staff are volunteers, and because you agreed to it in the submission agreement. If that isn't compelling, why not?

As I said before, the submission agreement is a bit ambiguous and outdated. I think this is definitely a case where old wording is being exploited a bit too liberally, beyond the assumed intention of what people may have agreed to several years ago, before streaming and content monetization were a dominant force in the internet. The issue is not that the agreement doesn't cover the activity, the issue is that the agreement isn't fair because the climate has changed over the years, and it needs revision to either protect this new usage pronto, or stop using the music this way, or some kind of middle ground, not sure. If it does, though, as I said before, I'm concerned that this edges closer to OCR's activities no longer falling under Fair Use.

[Neifion]

Why were you waiting to see when and whether people would notice? Why not just make an announcement?

I agree that if OCR is going through with this, it should share the revenue with the artist. Or at least, it should give the artist the option to share revenues or "donate" their share to OCR. Also, even non-profits have paid employees/contractors. My former boss is the head of an NGO that makes millions of dollars a year and he himself makes $400K a year.

You're making money off of material that is not 100% your own creation and you do not own the rights to. Be prepared for copyright claims.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Additionally, I'm kind of confused. DJP seems to invite discussion on the topic, but other users seem to assert it's not even a point of contention. Which is it? Does OCR want to hear the thoughts of its members or doesn't it?

[Sir_NutS]

On 8/12/2016 at 4:44 PM, jnWake said:

It is true that the appeal of the site are the remixes, denying so would be absurd. However, there are still key differences from how the YouTube approach works to how the website one does, both in perception and in how money is generated.

First is that the website links everything as a community. The website isn't just the remixes and even each remix's page has much more than just the music. Each remix has a great write-up by djp, comments made by users in the thread forum, a direct link to the artists' OCR page (which in turn links to the artists' Twitter, YouTube or whatever info that appears), links to OCR's site for the game where the sources come from (which in turn link to the composers of the source material), OCR's site for the source (which links to other remixes of the same source) and maybe more that I'm missing. The YouTube video for each remix has the video which is music plus the same video for every remix and the video's description which is pretty much the same for every remix, indicating the artist, sources and many links to OCR social media.

Second is that YouTube videos have views. Hence, there's a completely direct link between what each individual artist does and the money it generates. This distinction very clearly does not exist on the OCReMix website. When someone goes to www.ocremix.org you have no easy way of telling what the purpose of that person was. Unless you have access to Google Analytics you have no idea which remixes (or remixers) generate more traffic. And, even then, each remix's page has enough information and content that it's more than just the remix.

Perception is clearly a big part of why some people feel uncomfortable with this but you can't simply say Perception != Reality because they are not the same, regardless of how much you try to reduce it.

Well, my point is that Perception certainly isn't reality, hence the !=. Sorry, programmer's habit.

As you've said, the appeal of the website are the remixes.  But I'll go further and say that the whole point of OCR are the remixes.  OCR is just a vehicle for distribution.  The vehicle itself doesn't generate traffic and hence ad money, the product, aka remixes, are the traffic and money generators, excluding the ever-decreasing forum-visiting crowd.  Remixes ARE the source of money for OCR.  If the vehicle is changing over time it's ridiculous to imply that it shouldn't change because I perceive that remixes aren't the traffic generators when it's stupidly obvious that they are.  Literally nothing in the revenue model will change but the place where the ad distribution will come from.  Saying that oh, I don't agree with you making money of the mixes I willingly gave to the site and have been generating money since ocr implemented ads because I don't want my remixes generating money is just... incredibly silly.

 

On 8/12/2016 at 4:47 PM, Neifion said:

Why were you waiting to see when and whether people would notice? Why not just make an announcement?

I agree that if OCR is going through with this, it should share the revenue with the artist. Even non-profits have paid employees/contractors. My former boss is the head of an NGO that makes millions of dollars a year and he himself makes $400K a year.

You're making money off of material that is not 100% your own creation and you do not own the rights to. Be prepared for copyright claims.

OCR was always making money off of remixes.  

[zircon]

 

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I don't think there's any ratio of "Neblix" vs. "OverClocked ReMix" that makes it passable. If a person stumbles onto a song by browsing the catalog of a record label, does that artist suddenly not get the revenue? OCR is not a record label, so the actual logistics and rules do not apply, but for theprinciple in question, I feel, it is an accurate analogy. Again, it's not a "why" in terms of "why is the person getting to the music", but in terms of literally and technically "why is the ad revenue transaction being logged in the system".

 

Well, let me rephrase. you asked: "Was it generated because someone visited the site? Or was it generated because someone wanted to listen to my remix?"

What's the distinction between someone visiting the site to check up on new music (as opposed to any one song), then listening to a song and seeing an ad... versus visiting their YouTube home page, seeing a new track from OC ReMix, and listening to it? Is there a fine line there? As it is now (and as it has been for many years), user #1 is generating revenue for the site by visiting and clicking through to listen to a remix...

Keeping in mind that some % of ad revenue as it is now DOES come from single-mix pages, where would that fine line be? 

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I agree that if OCR is going through with this, it should share the revenue with the artist. Even non-profits have paid employees/contractors. My former boss is the head of an NGO that makes millions of dollars a year and he himself makes $400K a year.

The site staff, djp included, have not ever been paid... In a way it's even more "non-profit" than most non-profits. 

Here's a question for those who are not okay with this, to consider. Imagine Patreon folds tomorrow. As Dave mentioned, Google ad revenue is just about dead. Since so many people have moved to listening to music on YouTube and fewer people are visiting site proper, how would you propose OCR generates revenue for itself if it cannot monetize sources outside visits to its own site/domain?

Think longer term. In 5 years, for all we know, visitorship will be down to 1/10 what it is now, but the YouTube channel is now huge (already, 100k+ subs is a pretty big channel.) In that case, Google ad revenue will be completely dead. What is the solution to bring in revenue, if not YouTube? 

[Neifion]

Just now, Sir_NutS said:

OCR was always making money off of remixes.  

I never said they weren't.

[WillRock]

 

1 minute ago, zircon said:

There's an argument to be made that on YouTube, they are only hearing the music *because* of OCR. Does that factor in to how you're looking at it? In other words, OCR has a pretty large audience of people who don't necessarily know artists by name, but they enjoy listening to a consistent stream of good music. So while OCR didn't create the music, it did curate and distribute it to a new audience. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, which is fine, but it's worth mentioning nonetheless. 

 

It does matter to me. It matters a lot. I don't think it has too much bearing when there are legal ramifications involved however - If Square or Nintendo come knocking and say "hey, you're using copyrighted material and making money of it - that includes my stuff - I am associated with that. I'm a staff member. Thats not what I signed up for. 

 

10 minutes ago, zircon said:

From a legal perspective, it makes a huge difference how and for what reason money is generated, and where that money goes. If a charity uses a track of mine to raise some money, I look at that very differently than if a for-profit corporation does. Or maybe the opposite. I might not be OK with some charities using my music, but I might be OK with some corporations using it. In any case, who/why is relevant to me. Why is it not relevant to you?

It is relevant to me, i'm suggesting it won't be from a legal perspective. Honestly, I'm a bit worried.

[Sir_NutS]

Just now, WillRock said:

It does matter to me. It matters a lot. I don't think it has too much bearing when there are legal ramifications involved however - If Square or Nintendo come knocking and say "hey, you're using copyrighted material and making money of it - that includes my stuff - I am associated with that. I'm a staff member. Thats not what I signed up for. 

OCR was always making money off of remixes.  

[Neifion]

5 minutes ago, zircon said:

The site staff, djp included, have not ever been paid... In a way it's even more "non-profit" than most non-profits. 

 

That's not my point. You guys were saying that being a non-profit or charity justifies you monetizing and not sharing the money. I'm saying that doesn't matter outside of your opinion that it's for a "good cause".

[AngelCityOutlaw]

1 hour ago, Meteo Xavier said:

"Great, instead it goes to the publisher and probably some to YouTube - who can make money off a totally for fun fan arrangement I made. [...] If there is going to be money involved in fan arrangements, I'd just not bother with OCR or YouTube and licence the tracks myself."

Good lord, dude. Go check your couch cushion, you'll find your royalties there. These things, from my continued experience and reference, really don't generate people much money. You're not missing hundreds of dollars here, more likely, you're missing hundreds of cents. It's not worth getting upset over.

Man, I like you, but I've become completely disenchanted with your posts about music & money as it's just excessive nihilism and pessimism rooted in a general defeatist attitude.

Yes, any remix I've done or that I've contributed to has been not for profit and I am lead to believe that was OCR's mission. Despite Sir NutS' borderline insane insistence that OCR was already directly profiting off mixes because of website ads instead of directly embedded ads, which if it was really objectively so, I doubt OCR would've survived the whole FFVI Square Enix debacle because they could've argued the mixes were profitable due to ads on the mixposts. 

Yet, here I am faced with someone arguing that it should be no problem that if someone like Square, who had a legal issue with this site, were to receive payment from ad revenue via YouTube videos from OCR of remixes from their games, the remixer has no right to be pissed about it. It's a fan remix. There's no money involved. If there is going to be income to be made, it should be between the copyright holder and artist.

People want to be paid for their work - shocking.

[zircon]

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It does matter to me. It matters a lot. I don't think it has too much bearing when there are legal ramifications involved however - If Square or Nintendo come knocking and say "hey, you're using copyrighted material and making money of it - that includes my stuff - I am associated with that. I'm a staff member. Thats not what I signed up for. 

Concerns about the legal ramifications should perhaps be discussed separately than everyone's subjective opinions on this. Like Dave said, in monetizing this small number of videos, OCR has also joined a network which provides substantial protection against takedowns and support for fair use. Generating revenue does not preclude fair use; profit (not revenue) is just one factor that can contribute to a fair use defense.

Everyone might think about their opinion like this:
* I'm ok with OCR monetizing YouTube videos to provide revenue for its operations, and I am not worried about the legal ramifications (copyright claims)
* I'm ok with the monetization, but worried about the legal stuff.
* I'm not ok with the monetization, even though I'm not worried about the legal angle.
* I'm not ok with the monetization, and I'm also worried about the legal stuff.

[WillRock]

Just now, Sir_NutS said:

OCR was always making money off of remixes.  

There is a limit to what the companies will accept tho. Its a thin line and all these big companies know about ocr. Some we have even worked with. We are treading a thin line on what is legally acceptable and it feels like ocr is on a tightrope, testing how sturdy it is. Eventually, it'll snap, and break, and we'll all fall with it. 

[Neifion]

It's only legal until the publisher decides to take action. If they are not okay with you making money off of their song which you do not hold the rights to, they can force it to be taken down and pursue legal action. If they're nice, they can choose to share revenue with you (YouTube added that feature not too long ago).

[Meteo Xavier]

2 minutes ago, Neifion said:

That's not my point. You guys were saying that being a non-profit or charity justifies you monetizing and not sharing the money. I'm saying that doesn't matter.

Non-profit is not the same thing as a charity. The money being made only goes back to administrative costs and, again, it's really not that much to start with.

DJP has paid more out of his own pocket to keep OCR running all this time than anyone else has been owed anything resulting from it, so again I remain unimpressed with the criticism of it.

[Sir_NutS]

1 minute ago, WillRock said:

There is a limit to what the companies will accept tho. Its a thin line and all these big companies know about ocr. Some we have even worked with. We are treading a thin line on what is legally acceptable and it feels like ocr is on a tightrope, testing how sturdy it is. Eventually, it'll snap, and break, and we'll all fall with it. 

OCR has always been a gray area.  The thing that keeps OCR from not getting into legal trouble, as does the unlimited amount of fanart found on sites such as deviantart, is not profiting off of it.  Which nor the artist, nor staff does.