I wan to know how I can protect my assets from being stolen using exploits. Before yesterday, I freely let people view my builds whether it be finished or a work in progress but it all changed when my friend told me he could steal my map with an exploit which he actually did. He had proof of it by sending me a .rblx file of my maps.
Now I’m a bit uncomfortable to show the builds they commissioned me without being paid yet. What are some solutions to this problem?
Well with exploits, notably a fairly large one I will not name to bring light to, there’s not much that can be done about this. I suggest marking yourself somewhere with a script that you can hide within a small part of the build if there are a lot of parts that would display on the screen who it was built by until you were paid. Alternatively you could try showing them in the form of screenshots or screenshare and give them the actual game after receiving payment.
One thing you should start doing is avoid uploading assets to the website. I’ve started saving my work to my pc because anything uploaded to the internet one way or another can get compromised. I’m not saying that you should stop uploading assets, but I discourage it. There’s no assurance that your work is safe, even google files are not safe.
Asset theft is a growing concern and there’s not much you can do about it. If someone else re-uploads your work, you could report that item or email roblox to have it taken down and that’s just about it.
I mean, this could possibly help - but it might sound dumb in the process. Once you are finished building/working/whatever from that day, put everything in serverstorage or serverscriptservice and the exploits will not be able to grab them.
it sounds dumb, I know but this is the only way I can think of while actively dev’ing something SMALL
You could also save your maps to a file when you’re done working for the day, and delete the game. these are sadly annoying alternatives.
This is a common topic that’s been asked around many thousands of times by now. The short version of it is that once an asset is on the site, no such thing exists for you. Anything that the client can see, it can also take. Obvious exceptions apply, such as raw animation data.
The best kind of protection you can get is not to have open houses for commissions. Set up a viewing hub of some sort, whether that’s an Imgur album or a bunch of pictures for the user. It’s unfortunate that they won’t be able to get a live look, but that’s the best you can do frankly.
Personally, this is why I don’t take up commissions. I don’t really care if my work is stolen but it’s just generally a pain when it happens and I don’t want to have to deal with that. Worst case scenario; something of mine gets stolen, big deal; it’s Roblox, stealing is way too easy.
A lot of top developers have their content leaked and passed around privately as well. My personal take is not to worry too much about it unless someone’s making a profit off of the work they stole from you, which then you need to get moderation involvement with as much on-platform proof as you can muster.
You’ll realise that in a majority of cases it’s not worth getting hellbent over preventing asset theft or getting a headache from witch hunting stolen copies of your work. Go after the ones who are trying to make it big with an entire map they took from you, otherwise just focus on your own productivity and the commission parties. Make sure you get your due pay and have a plan behind you to backpedal if the commissioning party exploits to avoid paying.
There’s anti-decompilers around. I’m not sure if Roblox or such has released one at the current moment but there’s people that make them. Try to find them, as I’ve had this happen to me before.