Though it's been a while since I've added new features to the site, I will have some free time on the weekend of August 25-26 and plan to add hundreds of remixes.

I've gotten several requests from people who have asked me if I had one remix or another. Since I've been downloading remixes since 1997, I have close to ten thousand remixes ranging from the midis that were prevalent in the late '90s to impulse tracker (*.it) files and even files that were from the original version of VGMix (not the VGMix X that was available in 2005 or so).

Some of these remixes may be the only copies that exist and could be lost even to the artists, so from a standpoint of preserving culture I want to get these online. Keep visiting to hear more over the next few weeks.

I'll also be contacting the VGMdb administrators to update the database with the latest VBMdb information.

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I'd recommend contacting the creators of the original remixes first. Otherwise you're stealing people's work, not preserving culture.

I only plan to post free works that were publicly released to download on remix sites by anyone. Additionally, I spent two weeks creating a "claims" process where anyone can "claim" their songs by providing evidence such as a link to a forum post announcing its release. People who claim songs can revise them, change their attributes, or delete them entirely if they wish. If they delete them, they won't be readded.

Anything that is even remotely commercial will definitely be avoided. Also, there's a post on the Overclocked ReMix forums where Liontamer specifically authorizes thousands of works to be added.

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I really hope they give the VGMdb a proper update. It lacks especially a lot of the original soundtracks, and if they are not in VGMdb, it's hard to find remixes of the song you're looking for.

As to the music, I uploaded 50 unique tracks that I couldn't find anywhere else and uploaded the entire VGMix canon. Since zircon said it is also acceptable to upload the entire Overclocked ReMix canon, I'll do that sometime tomorrow.

In regards to the VGMdb being two years out of date, I sent a message to Secret Squirrel two weeks ago about that, but he hasn't had a chance to reply yet. I'll have to send him another message, or perhaps he could chime in if he's reading here.

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Which post would that be, exactly?

I run OC ReMix, you might know me, and please be informed that I unequivocally do NOT support your actions.

You are scraping communities that were built up over years just to bump your stats. Inherent in the OC ReMix terms of use is that we reserve the right to deny usage of this nature, and let me be clear, we DENY USAGE OF THIS NATURE to you.

I'd like to quote a post from your own blog:

It seems like that's your attitude towards life, and running your site, and it's not okay with me, and it's not okay with our staff, and I'm pretty sure it's not okay w/ VGMdb either.

I don't approve of the action you've taken with VGMix, but I am not in a definitive position to prevent it. With regards to OC ReMix, I'm telling you very specifically: GET ARTIST CONSENT FIRST.

And, by the way, based on your actions to date, and specifically with regard to your mass-move of VGMix songs without any effort to obtain consent, we will be advising ALL artists to avoid you.

You do not want to do this.

quintin, with any music, you need to get permission from the artists before hosting it. I know it's a grey area with game mixes because they often didn't have the permission of the original composers. However, this is more a separate issue regarding derivative works.

With OCR, the remix artists give permission to the site owner (djp) to host their works. Regardless of what zircon or Liontamer may have said (though I find these claims questionable), djp runs OCR. Unless you have his consent or the consent of the individual artists who created each track, you should not be hosting the music. Doing so will make you run into a lot of opposition, including with the staff here at VGMdb.

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hi~

Hey, Quintin. I think you should reconsider this plan for a few reasons:

1. The right to download a piece of music for personal use does not equate to a right to redistribute it.
2. There is no open right to redistribute something that was formerly distributed by someone else but is no long available.
3. It is important to respect the wishes of the creators of content.

I know that many remixers from a decade ago seem to have disappeared, but this isn't the way to solve the problem. A more positive approach would be to try to track some of them down. I'm sure that many of them would be interested in an opportunity to spotlight their works, but it is still important to ask first. Many in the community would support a concerted effort to accomplish this.

Treating content creators respectfully is critical in the long term. Failing to do that is damaging to your legacy, and once your brand is associated with the file-traders, there is no way to salvage it.

I removed all of these works yesterday, so this is no longer an issue. I appreciate the input of everyone and have done what was asked.

djpretzel, I really don't want to get into another argument with you, but I'm tired of your site's administrators attempting to misrepresent what has actually occurred over and over again.

----------------

1. Not a single song was ever added from Overclocked ReMix to this site that was not also on another site, so it is irrelevant whether you deny permission or not. You never bothered to check. Why weren't these songs republished? Because you had already published them and I wasn't trying to compete with your site.

2. Had I published the Overclocked ReMix archive, it wouldn't be legally enforceable unless you changed your republication policy to apply equally to all sites.

3. The songs that were added were checked to ensure they originated from sites that had republication policies. The other 2000 songs in the archive I could not source were never published.

4. Other sites, such as vgmixarchive.com, have republished your works without your permission, but you have not taken action against those sites.

5. It is hypocritical for you to make a big fuss about artists controlling works. You do not delete works even when artists request their deletion. I have allowed every single artist who has ever requested works to be deleted to remove theirs, before this and in this instance.

----------------

You could have simply waited for me to reply to your private message, when I would have clarified that I never posted any of Overclocked's songs, instead of making a huge scene here denying permission for something that nobody ever did.

On Overclocked ReMix, you made accusations in poor taste against me and then deleted your comments so that others would not see them. If you are willing to allow me to post on your forums without closing my threads and assuming I'm there to disrupt the community, then say so and we'll call a truce. I had always thought that to be the better idea and wanted to help you. Otherwise, I simply ask that you refrain from posting here, as there are people on the Shizz willing to help and I want to spend my time improving the site.

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"Since zircon said it is also acceptable to upload the entire Overclocked ReMix canon, I'll do that sometime tomorrow." ... that certainly sounded like a plan to upload everything. I didn't need to "bother to check" - your own words clearly described your planned actions, right here. I noticed that your latest post originally read that you "never had plans" to do so, but then you edited it. Good call on that edit, but your original statement is still present above. Perhaps you should go ahead and edit that, too, except that VGMdb probably keeps database backups, and vBulletin tracks edit history. The safest way to avoid contradicting yourself and/or being in a position where you feel compelled to revise history is to not make statements you'll regret in the first place.

No idea what you're talking about; our content policy at http://ocremix.org/info/Content_Policy clearly states "OverClocked ReMix reserves the right to terminate this license at any time." In general, we want to allow people to redistribute these mixes - individually - in situations that are supportive and non-commercial. Not batch-add the aggregate to up your SEO.

Jake Kaufman has already addressed this point in a private email, if you're referring to VGMix.

To my knowledge this is not true; anything on that site was independently submitted by artists to vgmix.com when it was active. If you know of specific examples, please describe them. Otherwise this is an unfounded allegation against VGMix.

We manage a canon of controlled works - you yourself referred to it as a canon when you mentioned your plans to add all of it to your site, above, and then turned around and denied any such plans - so this suggests you understand the nature of how we do things. While the removal policy may not be loved by all, our entire content policy was established & revised transparently, with full community discussion. Artists weighed in, there was a back and forth, and the policy was improved because the community discussed it.

This is what it means to have a community. You listen, you don't always agree, but it's a dialogue. It's not about batch-uploading tons of files, and it's not about SEO, and it's not about Google Analytics, and it's not about power grabs, and it's not about ignoring the facts when virt, Rama, and I - VGMix, ThaSauce, AND OCR - all try to explain that you're being unethical and inconsistent.

I'm personally recommending to VGMdb staff that, based on your actions, responses, and behavior, they do as much as possible to distance VGMdb - an excellent, revered resource - from you.

They do great, difficult work here, and have built a genuine community from the ground-up. That doesn't seem consistent to me with the way you've chosen to go about things.

Hey, saw my name invoked, so I wanted to clarify things. I don't have anything against quintin, but I didn't say he could host the OCR catalog in the way that he's pitching.

He probably took something I said on the forums, possibly not even directly to him, out of context. I'm happy to be quoted, but I've said before, if you want to host an OC ReMix somewhere, you just can't alter the filenames or metadata like the site's Content Policy explicitly states. It seems as if he extrapolated that into "OK, I can mirror & databasify their catalog, he told me so."

I didn't.

The Content Policy's written to allow and encourage fans to share the tracks, as in one or a handful because you love the tracks & the artists, but in a way that doesn't alter the files. The Content Policy's also allows OCR to terminate that agreement in cases where it's not being used in the spirit of the agreement, and so djp has responded doing that.

Whether or not you'll host OCR's music isn't the primary issue of the criticisms you've gotten, it's simply about hosting a ton of these artists' arrangements with 0 permission and without their knowledge.

__________________
Larry "Liontamer" Oji
Community Manager & Submissions Judge, OverClocked ReMix
OC ReMix ~ twitter.com/ocremix ~ facebook.com/ocremix ~ youtube.com/ocremix

I'm tired with arguing with you, dj. I did everything you asked down to the letter, and you keep criticizing me about one thing or another. I left your forums and removed the music. What more exactly do you want me to do? Why does someone who is supposed to be a leader continue to belittle and bully people?

If Gigablah and Secret Squirrel want us to separate from them, then I will comply with their wishes, set up a new forum, and remove the links to their site. Let them make that decision. They can tell me that through a private message and I'll start making the transition.

Edited: I wanted to point out that Liontamer seems reasonable here, and I don't have anything against him.

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Now you can embed your songs in forum posts and webpages just like this image! Click the image to find out how!

When you mischaracterize the statements of myself, or OCR staff, I feel obliged to point it out. I hope you don't consider that to be bullying or belittling.

When you announce plans to assimilate thirteen years worth of music without artist consent, and then assert that you never had such plans, I also feel obliged to point that out as well, more for the sake of clarity than any personal need to humiliate you. Once again, I don't consider this bullying or belittling.

I'd rather not be here, writing this at all, to be sure. While you can try to segue this into a question of tone or rhetoric, the main thing to me is that you understand our position, and the problems with your actions, and that all others affected are also informed. What they choose to do with the information is their prerogative.

You can play the "I'd rather not argue" card on this (if you're actually "tired" of "arguing" - wouldn't you BE tired? As in, simply not reply?), or the "you're bullying me" card, and perhaps that will resonate with someone, somewhere. I'd hope that the reality of the situation is apparent to most, though, and that such attempts to mask it by framing things as adversarial are seen for what they are.

At this point I don't believe anyone is requesting anything more from you, but I'm honestly more concerned about what the future might bring. When you live & die by analytics, and all other factors are a distant second, this type of decision-making tends to repeat itself. I honestly don't feel like you've learned anything from this. You've had Jake tell you, you've had Doug tell you, I've told you, and VGMdb staff have told you, and you're still insisting on characterizing yourself as a victim, and admit no wrongdoing.

To me, that forecasts repeat actions of this nature in the not-too-distant future, but I'd legitimately prefer that you prove such concerns wrong.

I'm sorry, OK? I think that after reading this it's obvious to everyone, including myself, that uploading songs was the wrong choice. That's why every trace of them is gone and there are no plans to readd them.

I'm still not clear as to what your role is in all of this. None of the songs were even from your site and none of your policies was violated. No money was ever made off any songs. You hate me, so why would you care about teaching me or what I learn? Why do you continue to blast off E-Mails to gin up trouble? How is it your business what Chris and Secret Squirrel do with the VGMdb?

If an impartial observer happened to stumble upon this thread who was reading it for the first time, who would be perceived as having the more reasonable personality? Just leave us alone already, both here and at the Shizz.

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Very glad to hear it.

Once again: "Since zircon said it is also acceptable to upload the entire Overclocked ReMix canon, I'll do that sometime tomorrow." You said this, I've already pointed it out, and it would have included my own and many others' mixes. I'm glad you've changed your mind, but until this conversation started it was not at all clear that your plans had changed, and based on your actions with songs from other sites, there were no indicators that they were going to. You can keep ignoring that you said this as much as you want, but I'm not sure why you would when it's there, plain as day... so any questions about my "role in all of this" should be quite clear.

Not trusting someone is different from hating them; one is passive, the other is active. I'd rather not be devoting time to this, as previously stated, but it was a serious issue that I believe required my involvement. I'm not "continuing to blast off E-Mails" - I sent a single email to affected parties. You keep making statements that are simply untrue and expecting to be perceived as the more reasonable party, simply because I'm the one pointing it out.

I want Kaleb, Blah, and SS to be informed about your behavior so they can make educated decisions... it's my business because you're referring to conversations with Larry & Andy that are either inaccurate or never took place, it's my business because you've stated your intentions to upload the entire OC ReMix "canon" as you put it, and it's my business because I care about the work they do here, and want them to see what's going on. It's NOT my business to decide what they DO with the information, but it *is* my business to see that they have it and are fully informed.

I have no idea who "us" is, and I haven't posted at the Shizz. So long as you keep making claims that are factually incorrect, and ignoring the points I've laid out for you - using your own quotes - I do feel compelled to comment, as much as I'd prefer not to. You've invoked the "I don't want to argue with you" preamble before stating a list of largely inaccurate statements. When I point this out, you invoke the "stop bullying me" defense. Now it's the "an impartial observer would agree with ME!" argument, which is one step removed from "My God's bigger than your God!" I'd like to think most people could see through this type of misdirection, but who knows...

I appreciate that, I'm pretty laid back to begin with. That said, you're framing me as "reasonable" as some sort of implication that djpretzel has been unreasonable, hateful, wrong, and/or biased against you due to some sort of personal agenda, and he's been none of those things, so I think framing yourself as a meek victim and punching bag needs to stop.

Like he's said in response, "you can try to segue this into a question of tone or rhetoric," but you consistently ducked his point, which is that he quoted your own statement on your intent, and what you planned to do was unethical, and how you've handled this was misguided and unethical.

If you're wondering why he entered the situation, it's because you stated (and he quoted it verbatim) your intent to copy all of the site's music content for your site. [Again - "Since zircon said it is also acceptable to upload the entire Overclocked ReMix canon, I'll do that sometime tomorrow."]

I'm sorry you feel badly about being confronted about it, and not fully thinking things through, but he hasn't said anything unreasonable to you, he's going by what he's seen. djpretzel's been very reasonable in confronting you about a situation having to do with artists' rights to distribute their music in the way that they are aware of and agree to; it hasn't been anything personal or hateful.

"I'm still not clear as to what your role is in all of this." You think once you said "OK, I won't upload OC ReMixes," he should go away, but it's not that simple. He's not only advocating for artists who have sent music to OC ReMix but to other communities as well. And it's ONLY because he was willing to contact the people in charge of those communities -- work that you didn't do -- that this came to their attention. So his role has been to turn the stones you left unturned by not disclosing your approach to building a website. It's a fairly critical role.

The whole cutthroat/Survivor/reality show point of view on LIFE is just off-putting, and I agree with what he's said about your conduct and your wrong-headed approach to constructing a website and "community." It's not a dump on quintin party, it's just my observation as well.

EDIT: Looks like djpretzel saw your reply first. I agree with what he says there, it's nothing different than what I've taken away from reading these posts. Don't use my demeanor as a way of discrediting what he's said, it's still correct.

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Larry "Liontamer" Oji
Community Manager & Submissions Judge, OverClocked ReMix
OC ReMix ~ twitter.com/ocremix ~ facebook.com/ocremix ~ youtube.com/ocremix

It's actually interesting to know that someone still reads that blog. I haven't made many posts there for a while, but I stand by everything I've written there. Anyway, we can go and have a discussion about stuff over there if you want to talk more about that.

-------------------

Let's come at this from a different angle.

Between four and three months ago, I posted at least three messages about this issue: the one here, the one that Liontamer replied to, and another one in the Overclocked ReMix forums. At the time, you didn't say a word.

Then, you suddenly told me to leave your forums, and without paying attention to the date of this thread, or whether anything had actually been done in all that time, and without waiting for me even one hour to respond, you started sending out E-Mails. Prior to your E-Mails, exactly one artist had expressed any concern whatsoever about this issue. No other artists nor any of the other site administrators you mentioned had any issues. I specifically sent an E-Mail to virt, and he was so unconcerned with this site that he didn't even bother to read my message.

On the other hand, there were people who thought that distributing their music as widely as possible was a good thing. A game developer sent me an E-Mail asking me whether he could license some works.

There are two reasons why it is impossible that any of the other sites that still host much of this music have any greater right to do so. Take the VGMix works, because they seem to be at issue. First, virt told me himself that he did not have the right to assign the hosting of his previous site's music to anyone at all.

Second, it is not possible that someone contacted 1376 songs' artists individually to gain such permission, because I tried to do so two weeks ago myself. When that game developer inquired, I spent about four hours searching the Internet for "The Unknown" to help the developer set up a meeting with the artist to talk. I was able to send a text message to someone I thought was him, but he didn't know what I was talking about. I gave up because he was long gone.

If it took me 4 hours to find one person, how long would it take to contact hundreds of people and get them to respond? I must have sent out 70 cold E-Mails a few years ago to people whose addresses I was able to locate, and I think maybe two or three responded.

-----------------------

The bottom line is that every time someone comes around who attempts to expand the community, you repeatedly attempt to shut them down. Why weren't you out there supporting remixed.vg, since it was also "dedicated to the appreciation of video game music?" There's a thread that has hundreds of posts in 2009 that stretched over several years titled something like "we need a vgmix replacement." You closed it, as you did with my thread on essentially the same topic.

I believe that you do respect artists, but the idea that you are on this campaign because of the really evil things I did here, and that you asked Secret Squirrel to shut this forum down solely because you are protecting artists' rights, is ridiculous. Why are you not going after the myriad for-profit spam sites that copy remixes and host ads next to them? The truth is that you've disliked me for years. I really hope that other people read this and don't cave to the pressure.

(Finally, the reason why I don't have anything against Liontamer is simply because you were the person who did the things above, not him.)

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Quintin, just stop playing the victim card on yourself and blaming others. It just makes you look like a bloody pillock, to be frank.

Also, it's funny how you keep saying that djpretzel hates and wants apparently to destroy your little site from the internet and yet you haven't dropped single drop of any evidence. Of course, it being the internet, mails and pm's can be faked.

And regarding to threads about new community sites and asking for members/tracks for it, would you enjoy if I would start a site called "www.BESTVMGTRACKSEVAR.NET" and started asking members/tracks on here, on your 'turf'?

But then, I think you've started this project the wrong way ages ago, if I remember right. With all that worrying about pageviews and stuff.

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The answer to this question is I would welcome the opportunity to help. djpretzel and I just think differently. The idea that I have any "turf" is alien to me, and you'll notice that I've never used the word. I have never said that there is "my community" and "his community" - those were his words.

Anyway, I'm going to set up a new forum soon. I think this conversation has reached a conclusion and I won't be posting in this thread anymore. If you want to help the discussion going on at the Shizz or at the new forum, then feel free, but nothing is being accomplished and these sort of discussions are sucking time away from improving the site.

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Now you can embed your songs in forum posts and webpages just like this image! Click the image to find out how!

Hey quintin, Snappleman here,

You had a whole mess of my old work on there without my permission and when I asked you to take it down, it was taken down, so thanks for that. But what I want to tell you is that when you do things like that, it really turns me off as an artist and doesn't make me feel inclined to really support your site or upload any of my work to it.

I know you've heard this all before, but you won't be successful at this as long as you are trying to be successful. There is no "success" as you are trying to achieve here. People don't get paid for this, DJP isn't making a living by running OCR. It's a hobby that people dedicate their free time and money to because they love the music and they love the community. For all the years that this has been going on, you've proven time and time again that you're in it for the status, and believe me when I tell you that it turns off artists and fans alike.

Without a genuine love for the community (that means getting involved in things other than site promotion and complaining about being unpopular) you're doomed to repeat this cycle of failure over and over again. I've been in this game a very very long time, and friendships/relationships/rivalries all matter, and mutual respect is earned and completely necessary.

So yeah, in short: make friends and talk about games once in a while, attend events and have fun with the people, otherwise they wont care to support some random dude who just wants to use their music for his own gain. There's nothing you can do or add to the site that'll make you popular.

Once again, I've sent a single email on this matter. When did I tell you to "leave" our forums? Can you please point me to the specific conversation you're referring to, where I said that? If I really wanted you to leave our forums, you'd be banned, and it wouldn't be a polite request, and we actually don't do that very often. What I *have* done is warned you not to use our forums to spam links back to your own site, several times. Unless you can point to a specific conversation where I told you to leave, which I don't recall whatsoever, I'm going to assume this is yet another instance of you getting the facts wrong. At this point I'm curious as to whether it's intentional or unintentional - that's really the biggest question... are you lying to others, or are you lying to yourself?

As far as timing goes, you had already added files - which by your own admission was a mistake - when my email went out. At that point, the damage was done, as you'd acted on your intentions. As Larry's pointed out, regardless of whether they were OC ReMixes or not, they were SOMEONE's mixes.

Now you're trying to put forth a new argument that this should have been handled privately, between me and you, but you'd already taken actions that needed to be addressed immediately, and those actions involved others, so the point is invalid.

Uh, so now you're criticizing Jake? He's busy making ACTUAL VGM, for a LIVING... judging his concern for anything based on lack of a response to you - someone he doesn't know and has never met - is really questionable. We've been through this issue before, I believe - just because someone doesn't respond to your email doesn't mean it's a personal snub at you, and furthermore, the world doesn't revolve around you, and people don't OWE you their time. When someone fails to respond to an email of mine, I assume they're busy or didn't see it or didn't have anything productive to say, and I move on. As Jake himself pointed out to you via email, lack of a response does NOT equal any sort of permission.

Okay? Your point? If anything, that only proves that Jake's not responding to you is NORMAL... there's also the possibility that you yourself are the common denominator in terms of people not wanting to respond...

How is that the bottom line? You've spent most of your post talking about how people OTHER than me aren't responding to your emails, and suddenly the bottom line involves me trying to "shut" you "down"? Did I miss the part where you proved several successive points to that effect, which would lead up to a "bottom line" conclusion of that nature? I'm sorry, I can't control other people and force them to respond to your emails...

It is not our job to support other websites; we do it quite often, mind you, but our primary focus is on improving our own site - as yours should be, I'd argue. Failure to promote something is not the same thing as trying to shut it down, and your sense of entitlement here is bewildering. You've got your own forums, and your attempt to use ours to solicit feedback on YOUR website was inappropriate, in our opinion.

What "pressure"? What? But yeah, I do hope other people read this... we're on the same page, there.

Also, I'm not on any campaign, to my knowledge.

I'll again say that I neither hate nor dislike you, both of which would require active effort on my part and would also require more information about you. I don't KNOW you. I dislike your actions and your tenuous relationship with the truth, and I don't trust you based on that, and that's all. I didn't ask Secret Squirrel to shut this forum down, but I suppose I did indirectly suggest it might be prudent, and I'll stick by that - your subsequent comments have only further illustrated, at least to me, that any perceived endorsement by VGMdb would be unfortunate. That's their call to make, and I'm certainly not ASKING them, nor would I hold it against them in any way, shape, or form if they chose to wait and see.

This has gone well beyond the kind of dicussion we allow here, so I'm going to close it.