Reproduction Steps
Go to this link: (Removed for copyright) - Roblox
The play button is missing and it has a copyright flag.
If you enter the id into a sound object inside Roblox studio or live games it throws an error.
Strangely enough, if you search for the song, and try to use the play button from the search screen, it plays just fine. You can test this via this link: Roblox
Expected Behavior
This is one of the official licenced songs by Monstercat, and is uploaded by the Monstercat account. It should be playable on the Roblox website and in game.
Actual Behavior
I believe the copyright flagging system automatically caught this song by mistake as it was uploaded by the licenceholder monstercat, as part of the music deal announced here: Roblox + Monstercat = <3
Attempting to play this song in studio throws errors.
The song is now completely removed from the platform. Description and title have been overwritten with “(Removed for copyright)” but I think the strangest part is that the audio has changed owners? How? It is indeed the same audio, as you can tell by the number of favourites from the other post, but why has it been transferred to another account?
Although i’m adding to this post I think this post should go in Website Bugs - DevForum | Roblox as it might be better under that tag. (Yes it throws a weird error when trying to play but this is more of a core/website thing then it is something to do with the actual engine.)
Roblox changes the owners of deleted/removed items that were originally on official company accounts (often the Roblox account) to random empty throwaway accounts for completely unknown reasons. It’s not the first time it’s happened (note: can’t remember what times it’s happened, I might edit this post with a source if I can dig one up) and it likely won’t be the last
The only two explanations I can some up with are either:
organisation/“privacy” purposes, such as putting it to other accounts to take removed content off official sources. or…
passing blame (eg “we don’t know who this rulebreaker is”)
both of these reasons are extremely weak and admittedly make next to no sense for many reasons, but I can’t think of any other reason why they would do this.
A possible (and unfortunate) reason for this might be that the license Roblox had with Monstercat has now expired. Unless they renew it. I guess all Monstercat audios will follow.
I think it’s extremely unlikely that the monstercat deal would have expired, as more songs would be removed quicker (not just one over a four day period) and there’d be an official announcement about it since it’s quite a notable amount of audios. As the last few days prove, it seems that the reason this audio was removed was just a false positive of the seemingly increased aggression of the copyright bot.
Monstercat now properly owns the audio again. Some very weird back and forth from roblox.
If this actually is the result of the music rights being revoked, could we please get some more clarity/transparency around this? The original Monstercat post never made any indication that certain songs might only be available for a limited time. We included this song in our game as part of a rhythm minigame, and now it will just be complete silence.
If the songs can just be taken down at any time without notice, then I won’t feel comfortable using them for any critical elements in my games.
EDIT: Even non-Monstercat songs have apparently been taken down too, such as: Clair De Lune - Roblox
That is… especially odd, since it’s a classical piece. It’s seeming more and more like this is just the copyright takedown system going haywire, but it’s impossible to know without an official answer.
Just to add to this, See You in Hell (uploaded by Roblox courtesy of APM Music) has also been recently moderated and blocked due to copyright violations.
Surely these are incorrect takedowns from fraudulent/false claims, as Roblox has existing deals with these music publishers if I’m not mistaken.
In fact, Roblox just uploaded the percussion stem of the same song that was taken down (See You In Hell (Perc)) 6 hours ago, accrediting the same album and publisher (courtesy of APM Music) in the description.
I wonder if in the process of uploading the new percussion audio, it somehow triggered an automatic detection and strike against the previous, similar but legitimate, audio upload from Roblox.
This is quite unfortunate as I’ve been using this audio in my game quite prominently for over a year now as part of a musical easter egg.
Small Update: I have recently been notified by a community member of my game that the song uploaded by Roblox that I was using, which was previously flagged and blocked for copyright violations, has been un-moderated and is now unblocked (under the same audio asset ID).
Note that the asset still doesn’t seem to show up when using the Creator Marketplace search on the Roblox website. Not sure if it is hidden due to its previous moderation status or that the search functionality is just really bad.
Potentially double check any affected music assets from ROBLOX that you were using to see if it has now been unblocked, via direct URL with its asset ID.
This song was restored under a different asset ID (as seen in the recently added description) this is still annoying as it requires anyone previously using the asset to change the ID.
Potentially the licenses Roblox originally signed are expiring/expired. And they get taken down whilst Roblox is trying to negotiate a new licensing agreement.
If that was the case, I would assume all of them would be taken down at the same time or with an obvious reason. I assume it’s more likely to be a bug.
I am taking a look into why these audio assets have been removed and will try to restore them if they were incorrectly taken down. In the meantime if anyone in this has asset ids of audio assets uploaded by the Roblox account on behalf of APM or Monstercat, please reply to this comment with them and I will take a look.
That being said it seems like some of the audio assets in this thread have already been restored such as ‘See You In Hell’, ‘New Horizons’, ‘Clair De Lune’, and ‘Decoy World’.
We have gone through all audio that was accidentally removed and restored the ones that have not already been restored. The following audio tracks are now available to use again.
asset_id name
1847868867 Nighttime A
1843037745 Lacrymosa (Bed Version)
1848211005 Massive Implosion A
1837239009 Corporate Goals 2
1843563014 Italian Dinner
1837807505 Riding High - Drums and Bass
