Hello I’m Buzzark and I have been developing on Roblox since 2017, and as a Roblox developer I create 3d models, animations, rigs, and more. I have organized an amazing community of UGC creators, and I would like to speak on our behalf regarding the issues experienced following the release of UGC emotes. This post contains our genuine thoughts and emotions, no AI was used in this post in any way.
Since the launch of UGC emotes, I and many other animators on this platform have been experiencing rampant asset theft, countless 1:1 reuploads of our work, targeted attacks against our accounts, and various forms of harassment from those targeting our livelihoods. Despite reaching out to support, using the rights manager, and even submitting formal DMCA takedowns, the issue seems to be getting worse by the day. As of last week we have seen some infringing groups/users even reach verified status from stealing our work in addition to already pocketing thousands of dollars in stolen revenue.
We highlighted the three most important things for general audiences as the first three topics. The rest is organized by what topics lead into each other.
These are the following topics we will touch on in detail:
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Who is affected?
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The effects of stolen assets on the creator economy.
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Users getting frustrated and upset from having to deal with refunds.
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The lack of security to prevent emotes from being stolen and reuploaded.
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Failure of the rights manager and how it unintentionally protects asset thieves.
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The Roblox Formal DMCA process proving inconsistent and slow to act, most times giving the edge to infringers.
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Coordinated attacks against creators and our creations.
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Asset thieves and some of the ways they evade moderation and consequences.
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Roblox giving verified badges to asset thieves.
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Concluding words.
Who is affected?
Everyone. It would seem upon first glance that it would only be Roblox UGC creators who are affected by the overarching issue, however Roblox itself is being targeted as well. Emotes, regardless of who the original creator is, are being stolen and reuploaded. Asset thieves are not only infringing on the intellectual property of creators on the platform, but also brands that come to Roblox for licensed partnerships. There are reuploads of stolen work from all parts of the platform, whether it be experiences, brand partnerships, or individual creators, they are targeting all of us.
The effects of stolen assets on the Roblox economy.
Stolen assets have had a severe impact on the creator economy in numerous ways. I and many other creators have compared our graphs and noted when we each experienced reuploads of our assets, and there is a clear correlation between when reuploads are put up and when our sales decline. To combat this many creators are pricing their creations at the floor price, because if they do not then the reuploads will outsell the originals due to being cheaper. Due to the overwhelming amount of issues surrounding this update, many creators (myself included) have slowed down or stopped creating new emotes entirely. We do not want to deal with the theft, rights manager issues, and overall failure of the system that has not protected its creators. It has become genuinely risky to create new emotes since you will more than likely have your work stolen, and in addition to this if you try combatting it you could have your livelihood targeted. With some thieves now being Roblox verified as a result of their theft, they can and have killed sales for many original creations which they stole from. This is unacceptable for us creators.
Users getting frustrated and upset from having to deal with refunds.
Whenever a stolen asset gets taken down, the item gets removed from the user’s inventory without clear explanation. For users this means that they lose out on an item they purchased not knowing it was stolen, and now they have to wait on a refund from Roblox which might take weeks. Across Roblox and social media a lot of people are complaining that they have lost the item and robux both, and are frustrated. With stolen assets being so rampant on the platform, with a large amount of emotes being stolen, this will inevitably lead to wide scale refunds and large amounts of frustration among the user base.
The lack of security to prevent emotes from being stolen and reuploaded.
Currently when you upload and publish an emote to Roblox, the animation data becomes very easily accessible and downloadable. From here, asset thieves can download the animation and in a couple of steps easily upload the stolen animation under their own account or group. There does not seem to be any protections implemented to prevent theft and re-uploads, I want to avoid going into detail about the methodology to prevent further abuse, however if any staff members would like to message me I am willing to share these methods. Roblox does not check if animation data has already been uploaded before, with stolen assets able to be freely reuploaded. For reference @CAUTIONED has added a feature to his website that can identify stolen emotes and check for mirrored, rotated, and speed adjusted reuploads alongside providing a similarity score. He integrated this on the second day of UGC emotes being released, and it worked flawlessly upon release. I personally was able to detect 32 fully identical stolen reuploads of my emote using his tool.
Failure of the rights manager and how it unintentionally protects asset thieves.
The rights manager exists to protect us creators and our assets, however its mechanisms are instead granting asset thieves nearly full immunity from any repercussions. It is very easy to report stolen assets using the rights manager, however the success rate is very slim and incredibly inconsistent. For example, when submitting removal requests for reuploads of your work you will very often receive rejection messages stating that the stolen asset is not similar enough to your asset. Despite the stolen asset being literally identical to the original asset, as it is a 1 to 1 reupload, the rights manager will often deny your removal request. In addition to this, the rights manager limits you to how many times you can submit a removal request for an asset, after the limit is reached the stolen asset pretty much becomes immune to the rights manager and there is nothing you can do about it. An alarmingly large number of removal requests for identical reuploads fail, and many of us are now completely unable to take down our stolen assets due to the immunity the thieves have. These requests are not being looked into properly, because if they were then this issue would not be happening so frequently with identical reuploads. As a result of this, creators are left waiting for an option that often fails while losing a significant amount of revenue and algorithm growth.
Fig C1: A rejection reason one of our creators received when trying to take down a 1:1 identical reupload
Fig C2 : Another rejection reason one of our creators received when trying to take down a 1:1 identical reupload
The Roblox Formal DMCA process proving to be inconsistent and slow to act, most times giving the edge to infringers.
Following the failure of the rights manager, many of us went the legal route and pursued formal DMCA takedown notices. Despite the Roblox DMCA guidelines stating that “Roblox must respond expeditiously to valid DMCA notices”, many of us are left waiting for multiple weeks for a response from a copyright agent.. During this period of limbo and when combined with the Rights Manager failing us, we’re often subject to losing out on major revenue, algorithm growth, and many other opportunities like growing our communities with potential customers. Us creators have been incredibly frustrated with the process and we have become demotivated and afraid to publish new creations to the marketplace because of this.
Coordinated attacks against creators and our creations.
Adding salt to the wound, quite a few of us have faced targeted attacks against our creations and livelihoods. On August 17 I was temporarily suspended and my emote was taken off sale due to a false DMCA takedown. Without warning, my creation and account were falsely taken down by a throwaway account with nothing uploaded or published, this account did not even have premium. Luckily the strike was removed and my emote was put back on sale, however by this point the damage was done. Like many others I know, my sales have not recovered and reuploads are outselling my creation. This doesn’t just impact our assets, but this targets our income and livelihoods as a whole because of the strike system. Once this type of asset theft happens, it’s nearly impossible for creators to recover their losses. There have been several well known creators who have also had this happen to them. As a result of the lack of protection for creators, it makes it possible for anyone to become a target under the current system. This means that anyone who has ever made UGC can become targeted for any reason allowing malicious actors to go after anyone’s livelihoods.
Asset thieves and some of the ways they evade moderation and consequences.
In the rare instances some of us have found success with the rights manager, the moderation action taken against the asset thieves has virtually no effect against them and their methodology. Groups are the main technique used to evade moderation, and the system grants them nearly full immunity. Asset thieves will have many uploader alt accounts they use to upload stolen assets, and their main account will be in the group to collect the robux without uploading anything. When an asset is taken down, moderation is only taken against the throwaway account used to upload it, while the group and main account remain completely untouched by moderation. From what we have seen, these reuploader groups are unaffected by moderation and our takedowns, all while they remain up and are continuously uploading more stolen assets from even more creators. Typically these groups will also have holder accounts for the owners, so if action were to be taken against these groups, the true main accounts of the thieves are able to completely avoid repercussions.
Roblox giving verified badges to asset thieves.
To add the biggest insult to injury, some of the people and groups stealing our work have even become Roblox verified. We are having a large amount of money stolen from us consistently. Our work is being stolen and reuploaded constantly.The rights manager is unintentionally protecting thieves all the while us creators are being targeted maliciously. We have asked and cried for help, and nothing is being done to resolve the situation. Now a month later, some of the people who have been stealing from us have gotten Roblox verified and can easily crush the sales of original creators because of it.
Concluding words.
Following the release of UGC emotes, many creators were incredibly excited to finally be able to make their own animations anyone can use. We really enjoyed the process of making the emotes we made and it goes to show how much creativity and talent is on this platform. Despite this it has ultimately introduced an immense amount of problems for so many creators in the space, and we have worked tirelessly to protect our work and creativity, ultimately to no avail. We love this platform, and we are frustrated by the roll out of UGC emotes due to all the issues mentioned here.
If the staff team would like to learn more I am happy to share key insights from various creators across the platform, including myself, as well as proposed solutions to help better the UGC system for everyone involved.
Sincerely,
Buzzark and many other creators on this platform.
