There’s so many free uploaded sound assets that are available for use, and with Roblox’s recent update it’s become much easier to find sound effects that fit certain uses. As far as I am aware, and please correct me if I’m wrong, all sound assets uploaded for free can be used freely in your own game without permission or credit.
I wanted to know if it is reliable for me to look for and get sound effects uploaded that aren’t copyrighted? How do I make sure, if possible, if a sound uploaded is completely free for use and not copyrighted from somewhere else? I don’t have much funds to upload a ton of sound effects myself so whilst the large library of uploaded sounds is very useful, I don’t want to have any problems with copyright in the future. And a side question, do you know of any sounds/a list of sound effects freely uploaded that are in fact definitely not copyrighted? Thanks!
Unfortunately, sounds uploaded to the roblox audio library by other users may not be free for you to use, due to copyright.
It’s definitely a good idea to ask the uploaders of the sounds where they got the sounds from, so you can be sure that you have permission to use it. Personally, I always upload sound effects myself, so that I know where the sound effect came from and know that I have permission to use it. However I understand that you don’t necessarily have the funds to do this.
There are lots of different websites and sources of sound effects, and many of them have sound effects under a variety of different licenses - Creative Commons, Public domain, royalty free, etc, and each mean slightly different things.
All sounds and music uploaded by roblox themselves is obviously free for you to use, but unfortunately other Roblox users may upload copyrighted sounds, which you would not have permission to add to your game.
If its uploaded for free on the roblox audio marketplace, I wouldn’t see any scenario where moderation action could effect you for using it, the most damaging thing that could potentially happen is if the audio was taken down then your game may not have that sound effect / audio effect working anymore.
As far as I am aware, the way the copyright system in Roblox works is as follows:
Firstly the sound is moderated and probably scanned for copyrighted material. If the sound passes it becomes free. Otherwise it gets moderated. If the sound does not get moderated, but gets copyrighted at a future date, the sound will become moderated (not your game).
This would mean that you should be safe using any sound on the catalog, you just can’t assume it will exist forever.
My game not getting moderated eases my worries, but could it potentially affect my game getting featured? I believe in the conditions to have your game featured, the game can’t contain anything copyrighted or used without proper permission, so if I had small sound effects that could or could not potentially be copyrighted, are those my chances pretty much gone?
What the other responses say are true - practically, I doubt roblox would take moderation action against a game for using a sound effect that was available in the library and uploaded by someone else. However, from a copyright perspective, that still doesn’t make it ok to use a copyrighted sound effect uploaded by someone else.
And yes, I believe to get your game featured you need to provide a full list of sound effects and music, and where you got them from, and verify that you used everything with full permission. So it could affect your game getting featured if you don’t know where a sound effect is from.
That makes sense. It seems if I want to not worry about copyrighted sound effects I can either try to gather the funds to upload them, or just hope that I can somewhere find a user who has uploaded a ton of free non-copyrighted sounds (That is, if I want my game to be featured or look good)
Thanks for the information.