In response to the 'oof' sound discussion

We want to comment on something that has recently popped up in social media surrounding the use of the “oof” sound and claims of its ownership by Tommy Tallarico.

Roblox’s founders, Erik and David, got the oof sound (along with all the original Roblox sounds) from a stock sound CD-ROM they purchased of licensed, copyright free sounds (not from an illegal website as Tommy has suggested on social media).

We deeply respect the rights of IP creators, and we have built our platform over the past 12+ years based on respecting and honoring creators.
Despite the fact that Tommy has no copyright to the “oof” sound (and in response to our requests he has presented us no proof of ownership to it) we’ve nevertheless been working in good faith to reach a fair resolution with him. As part of that, we have asked Tommy to become part of our creative community and we look forward to exploring that opportunity with him further.

Some programmer art from the early days of Roblox has become iconic, including the original Roblox face which was drawn by David Baszucki. That said, we believe the success of Roblox has been driven by our imaginative developers and artists, who’ve spent millions of hours and creative energy to build on the platform we’ve worked hard to create – not the default faces, bodies, and sounds from the original Roblox. Tommy has never played Roblox, so he may not have a full understanding of how our success has been built by our creator community.

As we’ve replaced original programmer art with UGC content, each element on Roblox (experiences, assets, etc.) has flourished and expanded. In the future, 100% of all avatar bodies, heads, hair, accessories and clothing will be UGC – true to our vision. We plan to do the same things with sounds – enabling people to choose community created sounds for common platform events (when they enter a game, at the end of game, etc.).

Developer confidence and trust is essential in fostering any new platform. This is why we are shedding light here.

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Great to see fluid communication with Roblox during these times. Looking forward in seeing Tommy in our community - an amazing & talented person!

Good work, Roblox. :clap:

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It’s nice to have a response from you guys. Hopefully this will get rid of some rumours and promote some more fruitful and informed discussions about this case.

edit: in particular, I find it very interesting that the sound came from a copyright-free CD-ROM. This changes the entire narrative that’s been built around this case, if it’s true.

If that’s true, I’d like to take the opportunity to, on behalf of the entire community, apologise for the incessant and uninformed ill will that’s been thrown around. We really should check our sources more thoroughly before using them as the foundation of our own thoughts, opinions and speculation.

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Fair explanation. Although I’m pretty sure proof has been presented. (For instance, his name appears on the metadata of the sfx.)

Edit, Tommy has just presented proof he has copyright over the sound:

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Best of luck, I am truly sad this entire situation happened. I wish luck to David, and everyone else. I am sure this is all stressful. One question though, if Roblox gets sued, what will the consequences be?

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I’m out of the loop here, is some guy being a copyright troll? or am I misunderstanding what’s going on?

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I’m sorry if I’m mistaken. I’m a bit confused, but this post didn’t really seem to answer anything.

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Not a copyright troll; he did make the sound. Roblox is just stating that they got it from a CD-ROM that had a bunch of noncopyrighted sounds on it, so they were unaware of the original creator.

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Thank you for clarifying this to us! Many of us were concerned and unaware of the situation.

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The sound ‘oof’ has gone global, the ROBLOX platform users aren’t the only people using it. Every day people sometimes even make the noise ‘oof!’. This shows how popular and spreading the ROBLOX platform is and how it can turn into peoples everyday life. This is amazing work creative staff. :heart:

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I usually don’t use the “oof” sound in any projects I work on regardless because it really just doesn’t fit in with 99.99% of games and just sounds… goofy.

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Tommy Tallarico claimed ownership of the ‘oof’ sound and Tommy has no proof he owns it (even though the sound id clearly says his name on it)

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I do think this could be resolved with the David and the Company he bought the sound from (and got legal rights to use it), and Tommy who ‘claims’ he owns the sound which anybody could have created this before him as I assume people have not dug any further than Tommy’s Game, but Best of Luck.

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This situation about false copyright claims, reminds me of Andrey Duskin.

I hope this can/will be resolved in a good way.

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So the classic death sound is being phased out in favour of user-generated sounds, among basically every other thing that has to do with sounds in games? How would that affect people who don’t know how to make sounds

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I’m not a lawyer or anything but couldn’t you sue Tommy for spreading false information regarding the oof sound? Can’t this go under slander or false claims?

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Developer Relations has been absolutely killing it with transparency lately and I am deeply appreciative of the fact that you all have taken the time out to comment on this situation to quell our worries and disspell some of the rumours that have been circulating around this topic.

While the oof sound has become very iconic towards Roblox, it has most definitely not been the basis of the platform’s success and it was a little unfortunate to see that some users were saying this was the case. There was some back and forth on social media but I suppose that’s the result of lack of information on the circumstances - or understanding.

I am happy to see that Roblox has taken the steps to address this issue, reach out to Tommy and work towards a fair resolution wherein all direct and associated parties are satisfied with the outcome. No one deserves to be upset over this sound.

Keep up the amazing work. You guys are absolute champions.

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In actuality it’s nice to have this all cleared up instead of us just making random assumptions.
Thank you!

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Thanks for clearing everything up.

I’m a bit confused by

If he does not have copyright, why is there a reason to reach any sort of resolution? There is no wrongdoing on your guys part, so I’m not really sure why you would spend time trying to help someone who has been working against the platform for the past 6 months…

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They cant sue someone that has proof of the ownership as @PawsomeDev said,but I cant confirm anything that Paw said but we’re not here to lie.

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