[sbcdz]

>I suspect it would be a lot more popular if people didn't risk getting dragged into a courtroom for doing it.

Well, talking about the popularity of doing remixes.. A game developer and artist in japan allowed a free-for-all on his IPs, basically people can do whatever they want to do whether it's remix his games soundtracks, make games inspired by his or write stories about his games and the amount of content generated is just staggering. Over 100 000 songs have been released in physical CD format in official Japanese conventions, and many more not counted in other countries or in digital-only forms. In the case of music, there's covers/remixes/more creative interpretations done in pretty much any genre imaginable. Here's some I've enjoyed:

https://open.spotify.com/track/7v25NVhjRtabtyZd1VOgKF?si=3f3... https://open.spotify.com/track/06MpdON26igXU9RypVjVda?si=e7a... https://open.spotify.com/track/6p3kue2ZdtVBH5QAFEOmaC?si=3d8... https://open.spotify.com/track/2WLFemt8pvSfekUBC5duXy?si=c97... https://open.spotify.com/track/38uLH7V5AVzHvZ0uc07ZtR?si=c40... https://open.spotify.com/track/73MhkPNN5Txn5oELXa4G6A?si=3b7...

Which by the way also follows your point :

>Remixing has the ability to take bad art and make it better

Although I wouldn't call the original touhou soundtracks 'bad art', they are flawed creations: Zun is good at creating catchy melodies and overall composition, but the quality of the instrumentation is poor (mostly Roland SC-88 and Edirol SD90 presets, not the most musical of sample based synthesizers IMHO. Of the early sample technology, the mt-32 and D50 are more interesting than the sound canvas series) and the fans have taken something that had potential and turned it into things that are worth listening to standalone.