As a Roblox developer, and 1 who has joined since 2011 I find it really frustrating how people can take or re-upload other developers assets and developers struggle to have roblox actually take down the re-uploads.
From everything I have experienced on Roblox for the past 2 years now on this subject I will assume that smaller developers get ignored and big developers get what ever they want in this regard. I have requested Roblox to take down some assets of mine that were stolen and Roblox did nothing about it. A front page developer I knew at the time had the same issue and did the same thing and ironically it was the same thing about a 3d model. My request got denied while his was approved and the asset was removed. We both made our cars from scratch and stuff yet my request for the leaked assets to be taken down were denied I find that odd. Now recently I have seen people re-uploading some of my textures without my permission and stuff. so I went to devrelations about it. They told me to go through a different process as they do not handle that stuff. After they said that I went through and did what they told me to do to request a take down providing the links and my original asset. Once again Roblox said they can not do anything about it. This time thankfully they told me it was 1 of 3 reasons on why they denied it. 1. They do not take down 3rd party assets or logos. Checked no problems. 2. We do not take down assets if it is generic. Looks at texture again totally not generic or a common pattern. I forgot what the 3rd reason was but my asset was fine and not related to that. Anyways I assume Roblox denied the request due to reason 1 yet the asset was not 3rd party I created it from scratch sent the original upload and even stated in the message I can show you the prototype version of it were I had it partially done and what not. They never asked me for that which was odd.
Long story short Roblox seriously needs a better system for this they tell us we can go ask for take downs and issue dmcas in regard to our own assets yet they don’t do anything about it and give us a reason why they can’t do that and it frustrates the crap out of me and I bet many other developers who are not on the front page.
What can Roblox do to fix this?
- create a better system for the request or provide more information about the subject.
- Allow developers to hide their inventory so people can’t go leak stuff by going through our inventory and coping Id’s. They did this with the ROBLOX account I do not know the reason behind why though, so why can’t we have all have this really nice feature as well or atleast give us a option for it.
- They can set up textures to work like mesh-parts which basically means it checks to see if you own the item before it goes into studios. Now I do know Roblox stated they can not do this because free-models with textures on it because it would cause the textures to not show up on the models. Well I mean while this is true Roblox could just start start doing this for any new model made or honestly just give us a option for textures. For example m is option 1 N is option 2 If we have the option set to M then it will make sure a user has the asset before showing up in studios like meshparts. If the option is set to N then it won’t do that. This could solve that problem and most likely would not be that hard for Roblox to do.
- They could make it so people can’t download assets just by using a URL as this is pretty much giving away our stuff on a silver platter and really should be stopped since every asset mesh, texture, audio has this problem currently.
Now why is this a problem? So what someone uses assets that you made or someone on your dev team made it doesn’t cause problems.
A. some people make stuff and don’t want the public to have it or use it as other people take credit for it and what not.
B. Some of the stuff developers make or own is paid work which once again they do not want the public to have just for that reason alone.
C. Some developers create things that no other developer has done and want to keep it a secret as it helps there game which is a common thing in the business world since it gives you a advantage.
D. People will just resell it or upload it on other websites and make money off of it which is highly frustrating for those who actually worked on the thing.
E. People will blackmail developers saying they will leak the maps or whatever asset it is if they don’t do blah blah and blah. Developer does said things or doesn’t person still leaks it the developer goes to Roblox about it, and Roblox just goes sorry we can’t do anything about that. Guess what rip the developer who spent who knows how much time on the things only to have it leaked and made public now they hate Roblox and leave the platform.
Disclaimer ~ I have no hate against front page developers and I could be wrong with my statement about how smaller developers get ignored but from my personal experience this is seriously how I feel after going through this. If anything in here is confusing let me know and I will go back and try to clear it up as my grammar sucks.