As a Roblox developer, it is currently too hard to effectively report copyrighted content on the Roblox platform.
The state of the UGC program is a copyright lawsuit waiting to happen. The catalog is filled with copyrighted material, memes or not. I don’t own the copyright to the accessories people are uploading, but I want to do something about it. Copyright is there for a reason. People should not be making money off of other people’s work without permission.
With that said, Roblox doesn’t have a way to verify licenses to uploaded content such as the creative commons system. That is a different feature request in of itself, but it does need to be kept in mind as this is a feature request regarding copyright.
Additionally, it could be said that it is not the communities place to report copyrighted material, only the copyright holder and Roblox. To that I say Roblox can’t do moderation alone, as evident of the catalog right now.
If this issue is addressed, it would improve my development experience because the community could better rid the catalog of illegally used copyrighted material on the Roblox platform.
Although I do enjoy the stuff UGC creators make (even if it’s not their own IP {intellectual property}), I do agree w you. People’s IP / copyrighted material should be protected.
I hope that some staff sees this and considers your idea.
I personally believe that the community should only be allowed to report copyright violations of the Roblox IP. It is impossible for anyone except the copyright holder to know if a license was granted and it would be harmful to have the community report violations of licensed IP. As far as I know, Roblox has a legal process in-place to prevent as many false-claims as possible and even has a way to initiate counter-claims into a court-case, this is impossible to do when the entire community is reporting the asset for copyright and not a singular user, what are you going to do, ask everyone who reported the asset (who has no rights to represent the IP) to show up to a court case? That simply isn’t feasible and the removal of such option from assets taken-down in this way is a regression, not progression.
The UGC Program and the accessories from those creators isn’t the only problem however. Classic Shirts/Pants, Audio, Models, Images, etc. And, I don’t think only using a bot is the best answer.
Roblox does have a system in place, yes, but that system isn’t working at the scale we need it to. To the point of requesting the people who reported the asset to show in court, I’m not sure if that’s necessary.
Your response does make me second guess my initial thoughts on this. I’m ultimately wondering: What’s the best way to deal with the copyright issue Roblox is having?
Hi, I’m the original person who wrote the response to the post linked above.
My response doesn’t ask for removal for UGC for all. Quite to contrary, I want it to be a thing. What my post was meant to address was the fact that Roblox needs to work on solutions that work on taking down ToS infringing content without forcing everyone to stop being creative with their work incase insert obscure company/store/creator here already created something that is on the UGC Catalog and takes it down.
As for the actual post itself, I’ll start this off with - I am not a lawyer, don’t take my advice. Things I mention here are from my personal research dabbling into copyright as a studio lead for a few months and needing to ensure that my studio doesn’t get sued into oblivion to the best of my ability so take this with a truck bed full of salt.
Only the valid copyright holder can report copyrighted content and they can do it via Roblox’s DMCA system. And yes, that is how the law works. If Roblox were to do stuff like that, the site would lose its Safe Harbor protections and would allow anyone to sue the site into living heck just because it hosts any content that can be potentially copyrighted/trademarked.
This is an issue that you just need to start bringing up with the copyright holders. Many of these companies/creators have ways of communicating with them. If you just start snitching to them, I am sure that someone will react.
Hoping that if and when it happens, people will think 10 times before uploading another minecraft steve head…
Thanks, I didn’t mean to misconstrue. I think UGC for all is a nice idea to have, but not as an actual thing, at least right now with how Roblox works.
There are many legal implications regarding copyright, ones I should’ve thought of more before making this thread. I don’t wish to ‘snitch’ to various companies. Maybe Roblox going through an audio update 2.0 is what we need.
It can be frustrating to see things like this, but there’s nothing you can do. Only the copyright owner can take action because only they know whether permission was granted (and to be fair it is their choice).
The only way for any of this stuff to be removed is for the original owner to take personal action.
This alone feels as though it invalidates the whole feature request.
“Roblox can’t do moderation alone” is a true statement but it’s being misused here. Something that may seem obvious may not be that obvious and you have no way of knowing whether someone holds permission to create the content or not besides crude assumptions. Now expand that to the rest of the platform. We can have a deep conversation about this since we’re part of the more knowledgeable and mature area of Roblox but the same understanding isn’t going to be held by most of Roblox’s audience.
This is why copyright takedowns can only be issued by copyright holders or authorised agents. A copyright option for Report Abuse that isn’t related to your own IP can be considered acting on behalf of another party that you aren’t authorised to act on behalf of. That is just as much a legal trouble as the assumed mass-violation of copyright by the UGC accessory catalog.
Roblox should not make it easier for its audience to abuse copyright reports on content they have no insight to. It’s really none of your business - this is between the creator, Roblox and the IP holder. There is no sense in you making reports on behalf of others, no matter the alternative.
Sorry if that’s been said a thousand times already, but it really needs to hit the point home like a good baseball batter. The only solution here is, as aforementioned by Koiske, pointing it out directly to a communications avenue and they can take it from there if desired, though I think even that is slippery as well. On one hand, again, “how do you know?”, though on the other hand they can simply respond positively or negatively and follow up.
