Currently you only have one option when uploading models: whether they are free or not.
I’m not sure if this has already been proposed - it seems like an obvious idea - but what if people could set prices for their models. Many popular websites such as TurboSquid already implement this, allowing for higher quality re-usable content. I believe this would provide builders with another way to attain passive income, as well as fill the needs of customers.
Buildings could have a 3D preview, whereas scripts could be previewablr in a dedicated game.
Yeah I think this is one of the biggest challenges. Or even taking a free model, then selling it yourself.
Even trying to “fingerprint” a model would be hard, because someone could just change a really minor detail in the model and then resell it (like adding an invisible part).
I certainly like the idea in theory, especially since I mostly just make assets, but I’ve yet to hear anyone give a good solution to how easy it would be to exploit the feature.
Sorry for not being thorough, but to answer your issue:
A. Checking similarity: Firstly roblox can save hashes for different models and then compare them.
B. Similarity [2]: algorithm checking the similarity between things - 95% = copy (I’m not sure how viable this is due to the amount of items required to search)
C. Moderating it. Just like how you can report to roblox if someone steals your game, so should you with models
D. Owner pride. You bought the item, you don’t want others to get it for free when you paid for it, so it is once ur best interest to 1. Report thieves 2. Not leak (so you don’t get banned)
EDIT:
Another thing: Turbosquid does it, I’m assuming that they verify each model - why can’t roblox do this, they already check meshes and decals etc? And roblox is actually gonna make money off of this, (unlike with meshes and decals) so even more incentive to properly verify.
Also for searching the main thing I found was roblox giving u tix for other people taking ur model
What about an option to donate to model publishers? like a couple of donate buttons somewhere on the models catalog page near the ‘Get’ button. one donate button could be a ‘Suggested Donation’, price suggested by the dev, and another could be a ‘Minimum Donation’ button, say 5R$. players can still take the models for free and come back to donate later if they want to.
A) What if someone uploads a default part? All other default parts would be detected as copies. What if someone is sent a model file to check it out, but they end up uploading it first so the original creator’s is detected as a copy?
B) Not possible to check for % similarity because there’s not enough hardware in the world to compare uploaded models against every single other one uploaded to ROBLOX
C) Won’t work for the same reason reporting stolen copies of games like @pauljkl’s Las Vegas doesn’t end well
If you have to ask “Why don’t professional engineers, who somehow missed this idea, do this simple thing?”, it’s because the engineers have already discussed it, it’s not simple, and it doesn’t work. There’s no easy way to block copies.
As you point out, tricky to do at the scale of Roblox. There are too many items to scan, and hash-based comparisons can only account for exactly-the-same matches, they do not extend trivially to checking a percentage of similarity.
This is why I pointed towards the shirts/pants catalog pages. I don’t think kids and teens are old enough to really care about these concepts, opposed to other websites which are mainly visited by older users and/or do not have easy ways to re-share assets. Especially if Roblox users can re-sell the models themselves, this would kind of incentivize buying assets and then reselling them for cheaper to make profit out of no effort.
I have to say also that I’ve seen a fair share of models on Turbosquid that are copied from other websites, or are ripped from games or are licensed animation/movie assets. They may not be among the top viewed/sold items, but there’s definitely a lot of them there.
As much as I would love the ability to do this I can’t think of a good way to implement it. However, I do really like @johnnygadget’s idea of having a donate button where you can support the model’s creator. I think that this would be a lot easier to implement and would be much more likely to be added.
For a. Why would anyone want to buy a default part? And obviously you don’t give someone a file of your game before uploading it yourself - you let them play it; or see it in 3D view / in game
B. I think you’re right, however having users “flag” for similarity and then having moderators review the item is a way to counter thieving, as well as approving models before being allowed to be sold
C. Not familiar with story. If it’s something like leaking a game, that means someone has to actually BUY the model in the first place, and what are the odds person A has leaked the exact model person B wants? And for obvious reasons, person A can’t just buy all the models on roblox and then leak.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a fantastic idea in theory, but I was pointing out the shirts/pants catalog as an example of why it is not practically realisable. Someone else above pointed out that the same is true for copied models/games at the moment, because Roblox can’t verify where they came from and how people obtained them.
For A;
If there’s a cool-looking free model, like the Endorsed Models, someone could take it and try and sell it. Now, let’s look at what Roblox sees:
A bunch of free models of some item.
A purchasable version of the same item.
There are two views that can be taken here:
The free models were uploaded first, so the model is free.
The purchasable version takes priority, and all the free models are leaks.
Now, we can take this in the situation that @EchoReaper’s statement to A. The original is now detected as a copy, and the copy is detected as the original, just because of how things went wrong.
With some sort of fingerprint on the model, users can see the model in their studio, save the place and do whatever, and remove the fingerprint from the .rbxmx / .rbxlx file if neccessary - depends on how that’d be implemented.
As for reporting - I wouldn’t consider that a noteworthy point. There are clear cases of rule-breakers who have been reported tens of times without action taken, explicit/otherwise rulebreaking assets uploaded that have been reported many times without being taken down after several months, and similar cases.
The sheer amount of copied clothing you can find should have to get taken down before this sort of feature, if it is to be a valid point that reporting/reporting copies of assets will get it moderated quickly.
And now we turn a simple idea into a complex, kinda bad solution to a non existent problem. I oppose this for the sole reason that it would screw up the entire model balance. Only low quality assets would be available to the substantial user base which can’t use HQ models.
I really don’t think that it’s a good idea to “sell” free models. They’re called “free models” for a reason – they’re free. Honestly, there wouldn’t be a sufficient method in order to find as and when someone’s copying a paid model. Especially when such a thing doesn’t exist already. I can see where you’re coming from, so people who make models released to the public can still earn some money out of it, but this isn’t the way you’ll solve it. There needs a more complex way of protecting these models once they’ve been sold.
Okay, that’s a really good point. It can be solved though by looking at the dates of upload / update. (First model has priority even if it’s free).
As for your reporting argument, I think the issue with clothing is that it’s free to upload, meaning there’s no point in making sure ur uploading quality, and also that ROBLOX has to check a lot more.
However, a solution could be to charge an “upload fee.” This would pay ROBLOX for their time verifying that the model is authentic, and make you only upload it if you BELIEVE it is high quality and will make money (fee only for paid models).
They also get the same thing from shirt sales but I haven’t really seen much be done about the mountains of pages of copies. I’d love for someone to prove me wrong but from what I’ve seen it would take an enormous effort. Instead of adding yet another feature similar to clothing selling I’d almost rather see Roblox get the catalog under control to prove they have a good solution and then look at other similar opportunities like model selling.
As for why I like the donate button idea. It would be a lot more obvious to people that they could support devs that way which would make it more likely for people to pay the devs. Also, it may encourage people to make more quality models for free and we could improve the toolbox that way.