Not too sure if this is the correct forum category for this question, so if I need to move the post please tell me.
As roblox confirmed a while ago, when creating a game on roblox, it automatically becomes your Intellectual Property (IP). Although not very clear, this is also said in the Terms Of Use.
But what I’m wondering is: how do developers proof to third parties that they own an account and therefore the IP on it? For example to pay the correct taxes on DevEx in my country, I need to provide proof that I own the roblox games/groups/account that earned the money.
As far as I know Roblox does not provide us with any documents or anything to proof ownership of an account or game. So how could I proof this annyways? (considering the tax companies don’t know exactly how roblox works and need verified and official sources)
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Proof of ownership comes down to the Developer/Studio. Roblox doesn’t take ownership of what you make on the platform so if you need to prove you have the IP to an asset etc it is down to you to prove that.
Now how do you prove/get proof you own your assets?:
Take photos and date them and correctly store them in a folder that can be accessed later as you work.
Email your asset to yourself as another way to prove date/time etc.
Save any draft of your work or any changes to work as proof you edited them as well.
It really comes down to country as well. Seek legal advice for the area you live in I’m no legal expert but I have an idea of what my country allowes etc.
Roblox does in fact provide an automatic protection for your IP as stated in the announcement you linked in your post.
If you want an extra layer of protection for your IP, you could go to the official DMCA office website and file a copyright license to protect your IP.
Minitoon did the same thing. He copyrighted all his IP under the name of “Minitoon Inc.”
If you’ve officially copyrighted your IP under your name by the DMCA, simply put it in the description of your game.
For example, if I copyrighted my work, I would put this in the description:
Oh yes, the part about the intellectual property should indeed be no problem.
I imagine the difficult part is proving to an outsider of Roblox that the account (therefore the game too) is owned by me. Only screenshots wouldn’t be enough proof I think. But I have no idea what other way there is available.
Okay basically everyone (@ValiantWind@wellsway@ItsKoiske), thanks already for your replies.
So it like you all said there’s ways to proof that something is IP of an account, since it’s said in the TOS.
But what I expect to be hard is to proof to someone outside of Roblox that you’re the actual owner of the account. (I didn’t really make that clear in the original post, sorry)
E-mail confirmation could maybe work, but since Roblox doesn’t publicly show the e-mail adresses of users, that still doesn’t prove anything.
About screenshots, I don’t think that would be official enough for agencies like tax companies, since they can easily be faked.
Do you see any other ways to prove this, or does Roblox maybe already have systems for this? Or maybe it’s best that I just try contacting support.
If someone wants public proof then the only info that is available is what you put in your bio. You could put some sort of message there etc. If this is to do with tax companies they may email Roblox and confirm the details you are telling them. Have you emailed support? they may have ideas/things in place for these situations.
Ohh yes that could do the job.
But in the tax form I can only upload a .pdf with proof of IP, so I don’t know if they’d start messaging back and forth to tell me what to put in the bio.
I haven’t yet, but I will do it now, they’ll indeed have the best answer. (If they answer at all, that’s always hard with support haha)
Oh not really, I haven’t filled in the tax form yet. I’m just trying to make sure I have everything prepared by then.
But I do think they will need quite some extensive proof, since intelectuel property income has lower taxes than normal income in my country. For that I don’t see how they would be able to believe it’s me without some confirmation of the account ownership.
It might help to think of this issue from the other direction. The game is the IP; the Roblox account that owns the game will be assumed to be the owner. From there you should be able to establish that the account’s Email is yours and go from there. Maybe you can put together a PDF with screenshots compiling the following hierarchy of ownership:
Game page with developer account visible
Your account settings page establishing that you have access to that account, with the account’s email visible
Then a screenshot that proves that you have access to that Email. Since you’re the one sending the PDF and other paperwork, it should be assumed that you own the Email.
In the end though, I see a high chance of you needing to contact both Roblox support and your country’s tax and/or IP office for tips, who I’m sure have plenty of experience walking citizens through the required steps.