Experiences using Marketplace Items - Policy update

[JTrain420]

Your comment put me at ease because I was worried about a lot like the gears and stuff. But you have a point. They would be metaphorically shooting everyone including themselves in the face.

[jukepilot (Juke)]

This is outrageous, I’ve got to be crazy. There is NO WAY Roblox execs aren’t trolling us. This is worse than Audio Privacy. Putting over half your platform in jeopardy to promote UGC which not to mention, is flawed in everyway possible with copyright infringing, outright stolen and inappropriate content. The lack of quality control is mind boggling. Not forgetting that we have a week to comply by reworking all of or our games and possibly accounts will get moderated.

[birdmartinyt (The Fanboy)]

Not gonna lie, even tho its wrong, its kinda funny seeing copyrighted stuff you didn’t expect to see lol.

[MaybeHoshi (BarelyHoshi)]

Pretty suprised those get thru the moderation system.
but at the same time i am not suprised.

[ToasterWaaffle (jec897)]

Hey Roblox, here is my simple list on why you should reconsider this update.

1. Roblox stock has already gone down, this will make the situation worse (look at other replies to see why, people have already explained it)

2. Will ruin lots of ga- I mean experiences. Many experiences such as Arsenal, Apocalypse Rising, and many more use Roblox accessories in their characters (Arsenal’s skins, Apoc’s Creator). These games would then violate TOS and have a chance of getting moderated.

3. Vague IP related stuff. So you’re telling me that you can take down a game with a UGC of a generic hairstyle? Would that mean that everything not created by you instantly becomes “copyrighted”? Plus, why are you concerned about official ROBLOX items? Why are you going to take down games with the stuff you guys, Roblox, put out for US to use?

4. Ruining experience of development for newer developers or solo developers. Because of this update, beginner or solo developers will have a hard time as they’d have to make every item themselves. What’s the point of “Powering Imagination” or the toolbox if we are subject to moderation for using the character accessories provided?

5. Buy prompt. Not every experience is a shop roblox. Some people just want to power their imagination in experiences that have a character creator. Experiences such as “Catalog Avatar Creator” are popular due to how you can customize your avatar however you want for free, without getting forced to buy an item every time you equip it. While these games allow you to buy the accessories, they don’t force you to buy them every time you equip them on your avatar.

Please reconsider this Roblox.

[radiogamer]

Hilarious how the use of Roblox’ items (excluding sponsorship related ones) were fine to use in the past, and now all of a sudden it would become a bannable offense (read from the FAQ).

You really want to take down ALL old games that used any of the 15 years old Roblox meshes such as linked swords, visors, etc?

[Salemwarde123OMG (SWarde11)]

This is really insulting, many games on Roblox will be obliterated by this policy since many 2d faces, gears, & more used in many games. This is basically the BIGGEST L in Roblox history.

[icecandyparty (San)]

I’ve already started getting threats from players trying to report me for using models from roblox and this is really annoying. Literally every single roblox game that uses marketplace models will get spam reported from those anti fans who just wants to see people lose their work and suffer.

[richiitalia (SPDM_Richii)]

Is Roblox “powering imagination” or just asking devs to not allow offsale items in-game so they have a higher chance users actually buy items and earn more, literaly limiting the creativity of users.

EDIT:
Im actually owner of one of the oldest avatar editor games (which Is now dead) and this will literaly destroy most of avatars created by our users in games of this kind, also what we have to do with the headless? making It equippable only when its on sale? rethink this # please.

[hunterk1241 (HunterDaFloofer)]

I’m not gonna read all that! TL;DR

• Roblox community W for getting Roblox to go back to the drawing board.
• Roblox made a bad policy, but might bring it back at a later date (hope not).
• UGC marketplace should be public domain (within some reasonable exceptions).

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My response

Common Roblox community W for fighting against this change. It’s still an L that they are pausing and not removing this change. This literally kills millions of games in an instant.

I thought UGC accessories and bodies were meant to be public domain on the Roblox platform as long as they are not used to copy games on the platform or be reuploaded onto the marketplace. I am sure that everyone who has uploaded UGC on the marketplace meant it to be public domain (within some reasonable exceptions).

Basically, Roblox forgot an important part of Roblox: the developers that use the platform. UGC creators make items to be able to be used in these experiences and should be set as public domain on the platform once they are uploaded to said marketplace. Without developers being able to make experiences, Roblox is basically just a glorified avatar creator with games to go along with it.

Revert this policy or make it so that your main demographic of creators (developers) don’t suddenly get their game removed because they used an asset that should be public domain. This is just insulting to the amazing developer community that I am part of.

I just hope Roblox decides that this update should be completely scrapped as we will never forget this horrible decision.

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Some of Roblox’s Q&A answers and how I feel about them

@Roblox

Use of avatar Marketplace items in experiences has been a long-standing feature of Roblox. Why is this change happening now?

• Historically, our Marketplace was primarily populated with Roblox-created items. As we are about to open up creation to a larger portion of the creator community, we have to better ensure fairness to those creators.

By making an extremely unfair policy for developers???

@Roblox

What happens to violating experiences and developers?

• Developers who violate this policy are subject to moderation as they would be for any other violation of the Community Standards. This may include warnings, removal of your experience from the platform or suspension of your account.

Wh- You can’t be serious?! How did you think this was a good idea? This basically destroys any game with an avatar creator that uses a single item uploaded to the marketplace.

@Roblox

How do I inform Roblox of an agreement I have with a creator for using their creations in my experience without requiring it to be on-sale and purchasable?

• If Roblox receives a user report of a potential violation in your experience and you receive a moderation warning or action, you should appeal the action and provide evidence of your agreement with the avatar item’s creator to use their content.

And we’re supposed to expect to get wrongfully warned for something that we’re not breaking the TOS with? If we appeal the action, what stops people from just reporting it again and getting another warning from it later down the line? Hmm, this reminds me of the few times I got warned for having my social links on my profile.

Y’know, these icons that you put here for that exact reason?

@Roblox

How can I protect my IP?

• IP owners are the ones best positioned to tell Roblox what is infringing. And only the rights holder can report content that infringes on their intellectual property rights. If you find content on Roblox that you believe infringes your IP rights, please see our DMCA Guidelines for additional information on how to submit an IP takedown report to us.Roblox investigates each report and takes appropriate action, which may include removing or disabling the infringing content, and permanently terminating the accounts of users who have repeatedly infringed on the IP of others.

Now this is something I understand. Why don’t you do this with the items on the marketplace that break the TOS? Lemmie just get a few examples from the front page.

Iron Man lost a piece of his helmet

Krusty Krab hat from Spongebob

Literally just Goku’s clothing

Spiderman mask

THE ONE PIECE IS REAL- ly getting their IP infringed…

Funny bear mascot named “Freddy Fazbear”

And this was just from the front page…

[NormalChipotleWorker]

david baszucki was asleep so their employees made this announcement

[Voidage]

This is what my inventory looks like. All your equipment is stored there. It would be quite annoying if every time you wanted to change your armor/clothes, something popped up asking you to purchase the actual clothing from Roblox.

[jackertk1 (Jacker)]

i love all roblox update but this one is terrible…

[GoddessOfMalice (Iris)]

I mean IP protection is important but this isn’t the proper way to enforce it, like at all.

just warn users using IP thats copyrighted through a Message once you detect it and make them delete that with a time of 30 days to do so.

That way us developers have time to remove and replace the assets without compromising our game.
a week is too little time to arrange a replacement most of the time, which is why I think 30 days is a fair compromise.

I also think ROBLOX-owned assets should be available if you allowed it in the past, theres a tons of games using lets say the Default Sword used in SFOTH and other old PVP games it would mass-ban users who own those games with the old rules you wanted to roll-out.

I would still like something done against IP theft but dont ban people for it, warn them first so there is a chance to change things in a fair way.

[GoddessOfMalice (Iris)]

Anyone who’s against the whole protecting IP doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

people have gotten sued over IP theft before, maybe not on ROBLOX in some cases but that doesnt disqualify it from happening.

if a company like Nintendo sees you using their assets then they have every right to take your game down, if you dont comply with that they can legally sue you for using assets without permission and there is NOTHING YOU CAN DO because you failed to comply.

summary: Don’t be stupid and make assets yourself, don’t be lazy on something that can lead to major consequences.

[GoddessOfMalice (Iris)]

Good example of IP theft takedown: Brickbronze.

Bad example: The recent BIG GAMES DMCA on multiple games for “stolen assets” which frankly had 0 ground to begin with.

With brick bronze there was a clear offending content amount that warranted the takedown, which all thing considered was GENEROUS of Nintendo to do, they could have easily done something worse if pushed enough.

With the whole Cube Pet issue there isn’t good ground for the content to be offending IP theft, CUBE PETS as a concept is not owned by BIG GAMES with clear example of it being done prior: Mining Sim 1, Castle Crashers, Etc etc.

This Post is meant to showcase Good vs Bad example of IP Theft takedowns, one was deserved, the other not.

[BlueEhinas (GreenEhinas)]

please cancelled this update, not like audio privacy update

[TheTrex9000]

This update will destroy many games which in turn will hurt Roblox’s economy. Since you guys love money, don’t you think this update will be counterproductive?

[goldragon2045]

@GoddessOfMalice

if a company like Nintendo sees you using their assets then they have every right to take your game down, if you dont comply with that they can legally sue you for using assets without permission and there is NOTHING YOU CAN DO because you failed to comply.

I agree, and I think a possible solution for the ROBLOX assets that are offsale should be for ROBLOX to contribute them under an opensource non-commercial license, eg. CC Use with attribution or just Public Domain at this point–because not doing so will break the overwhelming majority of games out there. @Roblox Staff Please make the licensing clear and require content creators to specify the terms/limitations of use for content they own rights to and publish in the catalog, perhaps only support a limited set of licenses, like CC-Attribution, Public Domain, ROBLOX Commercial use… So that consumers of the content will know when they pay R or USD for the content what the terms of use are. IP is important for both creators and consumers in this economy and it’s not being managed well at all in the platform currently.

[alekos204x (DevAlek)]

Guys we have only a few days… we must do something

This can’t be real

please roblox tell us that this is a joke.