A game of mine has been blatantly stolen and copied. I have filed a request, what should I expect? How long is it going to take for my request to be reviewed?
My game: The Hardest Obby Ever - Roblox
The copy: Adu's Difficulty Chart Obby - Roblox
Approved. Wow, that was fast. Nothing more satisfying than seeing the scumbag who stole your game get brought to justice. Thank you Roblox for introducing this much-needed feature!
Wait, your request actually worked?!
Dang, youāre so lucky.
One in One Million.
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How is overall ownership perceived here? I donāt see a option on Rights Manager to add my assets.
1 - Does it take into account assets in my inventory?
2 - Do I only submit removal when I see my assets used / stolen? if so whatās stopping someone else for falsely reporting me i.e if we have freelancers
3 - How do I upload and declare my content without submitting a removal?
As a Creator, the Rights Manager is completely broken. I have now submitted two completely valid requests against experiences that have reverse engineered and copied my entire experience, and even kept the same name. Iāve provided screenshots of the original and the stolen content. I donāt know what else to provide, it is cut and dry.
Both times, I have received a vague, unhelpful rejection reason. āWe are unable to identify the creation that allegedly infringes your rights.ā
This is completely unacceptable and not how Roblox should handle requests for infringement on intellectual property.
Iām going to attempt to email the copyright agent the old fashioned way. Hopefully that method is still around.
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Iām curious how you formatted your request to get it accepted. See my reply above. Roblox has been denying mine for the vague reason āWe are unable to identify the creation that allegedly infringes your rightsā and I feel like Iāve provided all the information I can.
Wow. Iām getting the exact same thing when reporting a reverse engineered/stolen experience. Would you mind showing me how you detailed your approved request?
The old way still works, I recently reported the theft of one of my UGC accessories and I did it by sending an email to the copyright agent and it worked, the copy was deleted the same day.
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Yeah, sending a manual email to the copyright inbox seems to result in acceptance way more than Rights Manager does. Iām assuming itās because those that respond to the emails are more trained (and more human) than whatever/whoever reviews the Rights Manager requests.
I asked the Rights Manager PM (product manager) for comment on this but am yet to receive a response.
Iām thinking itās luck-based (You need to be very lucky, and somehow I was the first time). Canāt say the same for the next few times. I had someone blatantly steal my game icon/thumbnail, and after requesting it be taken down 6 different times, it didnāt work at all.
As for phrasing, I really donāt think it makes a difference. The first time round (my successful takedown request) all I said was, āThis game is a blatant copy. I would like it removed. The entire game is a direct copy of mine.ā and it did the trick. I submitted zero photo evidence with it.
The last few times that failed, I tried phrasing it in all kinds of ways. I provided as much clear image evidence with clear annotations and labels, yet none were to any avail. This brought me to the conclusion that it doesnāt matter how you phrase it. It doesnāt matter how much proof you have. I donāt think humans are involved in the reviewing of each request, because thereās surely no way they could be as dense as they were the last few times I requested takedowns. Itās painful, especially when your reject reason makes absolutely no sense at all, and isnāt even relevant to your case.
Iāve also heard of cases where the copycat requests a takedown of the original creatorās work, and the copycat ends up winning. End of the day, itās luck, and I think it also depends on how much the copycat altered your stolen work.
Really frustrating. Roblox has the right idea here with a potentially good feature to help creators, but of course their execution of it is abysmal, as per the usual.
I was better off reaching out to the copycat via direct message.