Can You Really Get Banned For Using Free Models?

I’m designing a game and would like to use some of the free models for things I don’t feel like designing in Blender.

I’m just curious if I could really get banned for using a Free Model and not knowing it’s copyrighted?

Also if you can, how is it that these copyrighted free models can be inside the toolbox untouched, but the second it’s added to someone’s game it’s somehow tracked and they can get banned immediately?

I’ve read that this is the case, and if it truly is; it’s really confusing.

I want to use things like trees, flowers, rocks etc. In the rules it says you can’t use copyrighted assets, even if you didn’t know that you were. Which is very scary to know, considering there is VERY obvious copyright assets immediately on the toolbox, however things like tree’s etc It’s much harder to even know if it is, and it’s possible that if it is it’s because it was added to a game that then became copyrighted? Possibly?

What do you think?

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If it’s not meant to be used by anyone, it definitely would not be in the ToolBox to begin with. ToolBox is a public repository made for the sole purpose of uploading assets for other developers to use, so you shouldn’t worry about copyrighted material. Only case of copyright infringement of content on ToolBox that I could think of is if the model uploader themselves have taken the asset in question without proper authorization off of the copyright holder and re-uploaded it to the ToolBox.

Now yes, ToolBox has its flaws when it comes to such issues, however the users of the assets are not in the wrong here as they are just using what ToolBox offered them. It falls on the person who has uploaded it in the first place because ToolBox is to be used by developers to find assets free for use, developers are not doing anything wrong here by using the assets from there.

However this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do your re-search on the model that you’re using. You should always have all four eyes open when grabbing assets from ToolBox and find as much as you can about it to prevent future problems that you may have.

That’s my personal take on it honestly, feel free to disagree of course.

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Okay that makes sense, that gives me a bit of relief. I’d imagine it’s kind of hard to copyright a tree right?
I’ll pay close attention to anything I use to the best of my abilities. I think I’m going to have to design a lot of the smaller things just in case though, I’d rather spend hours making the little things than be banned for something I didn’t know was copyrighted.

Hopefully they can work on improving what’s allowed on the toolbox for everyone though. I feel bad for the kids who just wanted to grab a model from there favorite game that is easily accessible on the toolbox, then get banned for it and not get unbanned because Roblox states in the rules it doesn’t matter if you didn’t know any better. That just feels really harsh.

I also read on here that a lot of models contain viruses that change the text of something in game to a bad title and also gets people banned.

I’d say it is, but then again you can still do it as it’s a model you have created, for example

That’s honestly the way to go about it. Getting banned is the last thing you’d want and incase it does come to that, getting everything reinstated will for sure be a challenge and will take some of your time, so try to avoid dealing with it.

I do agree that ToolBox needs some work done when it comes to that, however I did notice that Roblox has been improving the ToolBox quite a bit so I’m sure that they’ll address as many issues with it as they can. I wouldn’t say it is that harsh when it comes to such things, and I wouldn’t say that it’s a problem if your game is small or just meant for personal use of course. If a user is experiencing such issues for the first time, they’ll probably just warn them and let them know the issue.

That is true, there are models that contain malicious code that ruin your game or allow for hidden backdoors that allow exploiters to execute unauthorized serversided code, however Roblox has been greatly improving the security and they have moderated a lot of those models, as well as added a few security measures that allows developers to find malicious code more easily. For example, when inserting a model from ToolBox, Roblox Studio will let you know if the model contains any scripts, how many scripts, and ask you whether you want to disable them or not. You can then look for the scripts inside the models, deem which ones are malicious and safely get rid of them. So yes, Roblox is taking security a step further with assets on ToolBox.

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