If you publish to China, Roblox is letting China do whatever they want with your game, including keeping profits from derivative games, even if they don’t actually publish yours.
The Roblox Terms of Use include:
2.2 License of Your China UGC. You hereby grant and agree to grant to us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable license, with a power to sub-license through multiple levels to any person or entity (including, but not limited to, to the China Publisher), in respect of Your China UGC, in whole or in part, to:
…
2.2 c) modify, localize, filter, create derivative works of, or otherwise alter the whole or part of Your UGC, for any purpose including for publicity and marketing purposes.
For comparison, Roblox gives themselves the exact same rights with your content (outside of China), except you explicitly retain copyright and they do not give themselves the right to “make new or derivative video games using your UGC” (that exact phrasing will be important in a minute):
(3) Ownership of UGC and License Grant to Roblox. For any UGC that you have ever Provided or that you will Provide (whether created solely by you or together with others) (a) between you and us or you and users, you retain all copyrights that you may hold in the UGC …
…
(except that you are not granting us any license to make new or derivative video games using your UGC).
(So, as a side-note, don’t publish any music/stories/artwork/models/etc if you don’t want to give Roblox the right to make money off of derivative works of it.)
The part I just quoted is from section 6B(3). At the end of the China section 2.1 it reads:
Sections 5B and 6B(3) shall not apply to Your China UGC to the extent that they are inconsistent with Sections 2.2 and 2.9.
If we now read from section 6B(3)…
When using the Service, you may be prompted to grant other Roblox users the right to use your UGC. If you agree to grant this right, other users may use your UGC to create their own games and other UGC on the Service, and you will not be entitled to any revenue that those other users earn, even if they use your UGC.
… and take note that there is nothing contradicting that paragraph in 2.2 nor 2.9, and then remember that you are giving China a license to “use your China UGC” (section 2.2 (b) literally starts with those words), we can see that, while Roblox can’t make new UGC games using your games, China can.
If you want to get picky, that section I just quoted says this right only extends to “users”, and the China platform isn’t a user. However, since you give them the right to sub-license to “any entity”, they can simply sub-license to a particular user, and now I think it is fair to say that you are granting “other users” the right to use your UGC to make their own.
Section 2.9 doesn’t give you any protection (the following is the entire section):
2.9 Earning Robux for Your China UGC. You may earn Robux in connection with the purchase of Your China UGC by China Players on the China Game. These Robux shall be calculated in accordance with the Developer Exchange Terms of Use.
(The Developer Exchange Terms of Use doesn’t mention anything about China.)
Take note of the phrasing in this bit, too (mainly just the bolded part):
2.7 No obligation to distribute Your China UGC. For the avoidance of doubt, no Distribution Entity has any obligation to distribute any of Your China UGC to the China Publisher for publication on the China Game, and the China Publisher has no obligation to publish any of Your China UGC on the China Game.
So, the moment it’s “your China UGC” (ie you specify that you want it published in China):
- you give China a permanent and irrevocable license to do whatever they want with it
- they have no obligation to publish it; if they publish it they can take it down at any time for any reason
- you give them permission to add or remove literally any type of message (political or otherwise, whether you agree with the message or detest it) or feature to your game
- at any time they can create a derivative work and Roblox explicitly states that you “will not be entitled to any revenue” from it, since you’ve given the China platform the right to “use Your China UGC”
In the event that section 6B(3) is not meant to be applied to China and that they aren’t allowed to make derivative works and publish them without giving you anything, explicit clarifying notes in the Terms of Use would reassure me that we aren’t just donating games. However, until I have the right to revoke the license, or until they are no longer allowed to change my game (without approval for the specific changes they’re going to make), how can I agree to allow my games be changed to promote things that I may not believe in?
