Concerned About Using UGC Accessories In Game

You should always ask the owner of the IP for permission before using anything that you didn’t create.

People in the UGC program retain the IP for our items, and while many of us likely don’t mind other devs using our items, it’s more professional to ask regardless instead of taking the risk that we actually don’t want you using it and you ending up with a copyright strike.

It’s always best to play it safe when using others IP.

10 Likes

Thanks for the info! Much appreciated!

1 Like

I mean, if you acn wear UGC hats on roblox, you should be able to use them in your game? I’ve seen them used in games like Robloxian High School, and Sakura High’s avatar editor uses majority ugc hair. I suggest asking @SilentSwords about how that stuff goes.

1 Like

You can probably use it Roblox owns it and it is hosted on their servers not the creator.

1 Like

Lovely to hear this. Was worried that it’d just be a case where Roblox considered it the same as regular accessories, and games would be able to reap major profits over my hard work. Have had that happen before with an model I released for free, so it was a concern I had here.

“You grant ROBLOX a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free right and license (with the right to sublicense to any person or entity, whether a user of the Service or not)”

“Do not copy, transfer, display, or otherwise use the UGC of other users outside of Roblox , including on other gaming platforms or on physical mediums, such as clothing.”

So this is in the rules. Which probably means you own the rights to your model outside of roblox but it can be used anywhere inside of roblox in any game?

2 Likes

Where does it say this? On the TOS?

Thanks for the link.
30Characters

@SchwarzWalde those very likely are used with permission.

@unvexed, as far as I know, the stuff we make in UGC is still ours and we can express the right to limit who can use it for game purposes. Due to how new the UGC program is, a lot of documentation is out of date and needs to be updated, and everything is still highly fluid and changing. Best not to risk it.

And even if it were “public,” ethical and professional dev studios owe it to creators to ask for permission of all IP (unless it’s explicitly a CC0 license or similar) they didn’t create but are profiting from. We’re all on the dev forums and on twitter, it takes two seconds to ask and anything less is bad practice.

2 Likes

I’m doing exactly this right now. Even with the relatively small number of users currently in the program, I’m finding that more than half of them are either not on Twitter (or not discoverable by their Roblox username), or have “this user cannot be messaged”, and not open to message via the Roblox website. It feels like a formal system for doing this, on the platform, would be useful. At some point, the number of UGC creators is going to be too large for games like mine–which use the whole catalog in their avatar customizers–to reasonably contact them all and maintain a whitelist for.

2 Likes

That’s a good observation - and there’s certainly something to be said about making it easier to do the right thing, especially since you’re finding it difficult to do so at the already small scale of the program currently.

I do, however, thank you for your efforts!

2 Likes

So are we allowed to use UGC content in our own games? Such as taking the model and texture and using it in our games?

5 Likes

No, you’re creating a derivative work of their creation. Even if you swap out the texture with you one made yourself- you are still using their mesh, that they own.

However even if you edit the mesh, you are still using what is originally theirs, edited or not you are still creating and using a derivative work and will still need permission from the original creator to use. Unless the creator has explicitly stated that you may use the work with modification or other terms.

This is basically what your reply from Roblox says, but in a bit more context, at the end of the day no matter how you word the question you must first and foremost ask permission to use whatever is not yours to avoid any problems in the future that could arise from not doing so!

3 Likes

So UGC creators have the right to copyright strike a game that contains their items, how about the packages created by unity devs that are uploaded by Roblox? Roblox Devs can profit from the use of their creation without owning it, but because it was uploaded by Roblox - they have no right to claim like UGC creators?.

I had this concern too, but was told by a staff member they contact those artists and that those packages have contracts that allow this to happen. The artist understands that their content is open.

Roblox isn’t just taking assets from the Unity marketplace :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes

Does this apply for GFXs made for game banner and ads, that contains UGC items?

2 Likes

There is something that intolerates me in this copyright story.
You say that even if we change the texture or the mesh, it belongs to this creator.
But remember that many UGC designers have created rather simplistic accessories and make basic accessories.
And then if we can’t send a message to some UGC creators, we should have the right to use these accessories because they are used to be worn by everyone in Roblox.
If you allow players and not developers to use your accessories, we may automatically remove your accessories worn by players when they play our game.
It would be weird from a developer but it would seem to me fair.
And then if everyone starts doing that, the UGC program will no longer be of interest if we start censoring because of the Ugc creators who do not allow.

2 Likes