Introducing Rights Manager

Updates Announcements
#1

[Update] April 17, 2024

Hello Creators,

We are excited to announce the launch of a new tool for Intellectual Property (IP) management, Rights Manager. Rights Manager is a new destination for managing IP infringement removal requests. Starting today, you will gain access to this new tool available in Creator Hub.

Please note: This feature is gradually rolling out to users and will be available to all in the coming weeks. This feature has rolled out to 100% of creators as of March 26.

We’ve heard feedback that the current process for handling infringing experiences, avatar items, and assets is very manual, confusing, decentralized, and long. As we shared last August, we’ve been on the journey to build a tool that addresses these concerns about managing IP takedown requests, allowing creators to spend more time doing what they do best – building for their audience.

Here is a summary of the new features that will be available in Rights Manager, which you will start seeing on Roblox after March 18:

  • One-Time Registration: You will no longer have to repeatedly enter contact info to file an IP removal request. Going forward, developers will need to ID-verify and only register once at onboarding.

  • Secure Identity Verification: To ensure the verified rights owner or representative is filing the removal request, 3-step ID verification will be required. This entails a government-issued ID, phone number, and email verification. We use advanced image processing technology to ensure your documents are legitimate, and that you are in fact who you say you are.

    Once verification is complete, we anonymize your identity and discard any personal data we collect from your documents except your date of birth. We use your date of birth to ensure that the age on your account is accurate. This information is not shared with the people that you report for IP infringement. For information on how this data is used, please visit our Age ID Verification FAQs.

  • Easier Removal Request Handling: We’ll enable you to submit removal requests for assets, experience, and avatar items if you are the rights owner. There’s also now an option to provide more detailed information up front to give additional context if needed. You can also quickly duplicate a request to save time and add a nickname for a removal request to make it easier to find later.

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    New Removal Request screen which displays multiple fields

  • Greater Review Transparency: We’re now providing more visibility into the handling of each item in a removal request. Now you will be able to see the status of each item you have requested be removed in one handy page rather than having to dig through your email inbox.

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    Summary View screen which displays current status of submitted removal requests

  • More comprehensive coverage: All rights holders, including those that don’t have a presence on Roblox, can use this process to request removal of infringing content hosted on Roblox.

In the future, we look forward to offering support for bulk requests, additional improvements in the claims process, better searching and matching for similar creations, a new trademark process, and permissioning and better support for Roblox groups.

At this time, users are unable to track or dispute claims in Rights Manager when they have been reported as infringing on someone else’s IP. If someone uses Rights Manager to report content that you have uploaded, you will be notified via email and in Messages.

Building this IP tooling is a journey, but we are committed to improving it to make it easier to protect your content.

Thank you.

FAQ

Click here to view the FAQ!

What types of content can be reported via Rights Manager?

  • You can use Rights Manager to report infringing experiences, avatar items, and assets such as models, plugins, audio, images, and videos.

What types of infringement does Rights Manager handle?

  • Today, Rights Manager handles infringement of any copyrights you either own or are authorized to report on behalf of, even if your intellectual property was not created on Roblox.

What is the registration process?

  • In order to register, creators must first ID-verify. After the verification, creators will fill out a short questionnaire which serves to do one of two things depending on their role: (1) If a Roblox creator, the questionnaire will confirm their identity or (2) If submitting on behalf of a organization or client, the questionnaire will prove they are authorized to submit requests as a representative of a company.

Does Rights Manager allow me to both report when others have infringed my IP, and also follow along with claims where I have been found to be infringing?

  • At this time, Rights Manager is only able to report when others have infringed on someone’s IP.

Is the experience the same for brands and creators? Who is able to access Rights Manager?

  • Both creators and brands can access Rights Manager through Creator Hub. In order to access Rights Manager, you must be an ID-verified, registered user. We are slowly rolling out access to this product, so you may not immediately have access on March 18th. If you see Rights Manager in the left navigation bar of Creator Hub, then you will be able to access it.

If a request is denied, will we find out specifically why?

  • At this time, Rights Manager will only provide standard rejection information. We look forward to providing more detailed rejection reasons in the future.

What else will Rights Manager support in the future?

  • We look forward to offering detailed rejection reasons if a removal request is denied, bulk requests, additional improvements in the claims process, better searching and matching for similar creations, and trademark process.

Do users under 13 years old have access to Rights Manager?

  • Users under 13 should have their parent submit a removal request on their behalf. If they try to access Rights Manager, they will be prompted to get their parent’s help.

Will I have to discover content that infringes my IP on my own, or can Rights Manager do this?

  • We are in the process of building searching and matching capabilities, and are planning for it to become available in several months.

Does this only cover IP created on Roblox?

  • Rights Manager supports removal requests for IP originating on or off Roblox, but we are only able to remove content hosted on Roblox.

Where can I learn more about IP on Roblox?

  • You can learn about the fundamentals of copyright law in our previous posts on IP here and more about the DMCA process on Roblox here.
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#2

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#3

A proper process for dealing with rights infringements was long overdue by this point. Props to everyone who worked on this, and hopefully this signals the start of better expedited review processes for copyright takedowns, and a change in the culture of copyright theft on-platform now that there’s better tooling available to deal with it. People have benefitted monetarily off this stuff for too long, so this is incredibly encouraging as I’m sure every other creator will vigorously agree.

I look forward to checking this out :slight_smile:

96 Likes
#4

Hoping to god this doesn’t turn into a copyright-strike drama like what we see on YouTube, but otherwise this is really relieving to see and will be helpful right off the bat.

Previously, it felt like IP rights were broken without any sort of consequence. It makes me happy to see that experiences stealing assets from other games for a profit will finally go under.

That being said, I’m a bit worried about the lack of dispute tools. What happens when a faulty request is made? If there aren’t proper systems in place for situations like these, games can potentially be taken down without full validity.

Overall though, I’m really happy to see this change! Fist bumps to all the fellas that had a hand in this.

90 Likes
#5

Are we able to use this to remove any assets that we have previously uploaded, or can this only be used to request to remove IP-infringing content uploaded by other users?

36 Likes
#6

Definitely a step in the right direction, but will we ever see the ability to remove assets that we’ve uploaded in the past that might be infringing on copyright?

Also, can we get an ETA for this

37 Likes
#7

This is huge, I’ve had people steal my assets and maps in the past. This hopefully will be an incredibly valuable tool assuming Roblox can verify ownership of IP in a reasonable way.

26 Likes
#8

unfortunately roblox doesn’t allow it’s creators to delete IP-infringing items, which they should honestly, because many people might’ve uploaded having no idea that the content is copyrighted, basically having no way of fighting back because of a mistake

31 Likes
#9

The state of rights management has been pretty dire for the last few years, so this is long overdue. It had got to the point where we just gave up on submitting takedown requests because of the inconsistent responses and frequent delays.

Are there plans to extend IP management permissions to those you authorise to act on your behalf?

18 Likes
#10

Im just wondering what could happen if someone buys code, assets or anything else, and then the seller starts drama over something and ends up reporting something they sold, Is there something for these wierd kinds of cases or even if it becames a modus operandi for scammers?

24 Likes
#11

Will this also be used to track current/expiring DMCA strikes? This would be an amazing system instead of your messages and having to email the copyright agent.

20 Likes
#12

This is a very good change for the platform, but rolling it out without there being a dispute system is a really odd choice.

21 Likes
#13

This is an excellent step in the right direction and I hope we get more additions to this in the coming weeks.

I would like to see from this system:

  • A way to request the archival of previously uploaded marketplace items. Having to do this through copyagent takes 2 months to get a confirmation, and even longer for the items to actually be archived. This needs to be far speedier.
  • A Youtube-esque strike management system. Seeing the number of strikes, their expiration time (we don’t even know how long strikes take to expire…) and any other restrictions placed on an account is absolutely necessary. I’m surprised we didn’t get this with the initial shipment of this feature.
26 Likes
#14

It sounds like it was made for good intentions, but I cannot wait for more copyright takedowns drama for pets

14 Likes
#15

The issue here is that I have to send my ID multiple times, surely I’ve already verified that with you?

I get you dont keep it on your servers but i’m already ID verified, why do I need to verify this again?

20 Likes
#16

So i can assign rights to my entire experience and send removal requests for the ones that copy?

14 Likes
#17

This was needed for a very long time. Though, I can see some abusers of this system (rvvz) however I also see that is not a big issue in the overall ip takedowns so I see this as a big W.

16 Likes
#18

Looking forward to check this out!

10 Likes
#19

As someone who worked as the IP manager in a large group a while back, this is a good update.

9 Likes
#20

free models are going to abuse the ip takedown system

12 Likes