Note: Putting this in Web Features even though it encompasses all of the categories.
As a Roblox developer, it is currently impossible to prevent others from using your assets and game content even when you do not make it public.
This item is created by me. It’s not for sale–I have slaved over it for hundreds of hours and have poured my heart and soul into it. I would be crushed, should it be used in someone else’s game without credit. Fortunately, since it is offsale, nobody can possibly take it–
10 seconds. It took me 10 seconds to rip an asset that was offsale.
To remedy this situation, I would suggest that offsale assets become “invisible”–in a simiar fashion to YouTube’s unlisted system, an offsale asset would not appear anywhere to anyone but the creator, unless they had the direct link to it.
I support this fully. Many large developers face an issue where players are stealing their created assets that they made for their game for their own purpose.
It should be visible to both the creator and all players who have taken the item. Alternatively, the visibility to other could be a separate toggle.
If I buy a gamepass, shirts, pants, or whatever else then I want to see what I own and information about it even once it goes offsale.
Edit: Just noticed you probably mean it can’t be searched. I thought you meant the asset page would error or otherwise hide the asset. Why are offsale assets searchable anyway?
Further edit: I can see reasoning for searching offsale assets. Perhaps we should have a third option, “unlisted”, which hides assets from search? Maybe even a fourth, “hidden”, to hide the entire asset page from anyone even if they have the link.
I’m not a lawyer, but what i’m reading from this is that by uploading user generated content (such as meshes,decals,sounds,etc), Roblox gets loyalty-free usage and licence of those assets, and the right to sub-licence those assets. What this means is by signing/agreeing the terms of service (Which is required to use Roblox studio), you have given licence for other users to your assets in their games, and royalty free at that.
The copyright agreement between content creators and Roblox does not prevent Roblox from hiding asset pages from other users. Hiding asset pages from other users can be useful regardless of if users can legally use assets.
In addition, (I am not a lawyer, but) this does not give all Roblox users the ability to use all content from all other Roblox users. Roblox would have to sub-license content to other users. This could be done in the terms of service, but I’m not familiar with any section that states “users are given license to use any content uploaded by other users”.
More than that, it specifically states “(except that you are not granting us any license to make video games using your UGC)”. To my understanding, this is Roblox saying “we can use your content for anything, and allow other people to use it for anything, but we are not allowed to make videogames with your content”. In other words, this part of the agreement is for the purpose of displaying assets on the website and making marketing materials. These terms specifically state that Roblox cannot make videogames with your content and that they cannot grant other users to make videogames with your content – you have to be the one making the videogames or granting other users that license.
Again, not a lawyer, but I think you’re reading this wrong.
Searching off-sale audio’s gives you 27 songs to choose from. Assuming the Ten extra songs that are not on sale are exactly 2 minutes long, thats 700 robux (about 10 dollars usd) I would have to spend extra in order to upload audio that is already uploaded to roblox but i am not aware of it.
Another example where this would hurt users. Lets say i’m making a undertale art gallery game for my undertale loving friends to enter. Looking up “Toriel” in the free decals catalog brings up 300 images. Clicking offsale brings up 2,070 decals. By removing the ability to look at offsale assets, you remove 1770 images of Toriel that could have been potentially used in a Undertale Art Gallery.
Removing the ability to look at offsale content unnecessarily limits creativity for Fan Games and Art Galleries, and can and will potentially unnecessarily cost users robux to upload duplicate audios, becuase they were unaware the audio was already uploaded to roblox.
But having the audio not show up is the entire point. If the uploader is willing to make their content public and wants to contribute to the audio database, they can do that. However, if they don’t want other people seeing or using it, they should be allowed to do so.
Imagine a scenario in which a user makes a story-driven game that costs R$ to play. Some people will buy the game, but other people will figure out that they can just get the entire story by going into the creator’s Audio inventory and playing all of the sounds there. It is scenarios like these that should be prevented.
A very easy workaround for this is to upload the asset to a group, and then scramble the asset name so that is unsearchable. If its a decal you will immediatly know what it is from the group development page or the group toolbox, and if it is an audio you can store it in a bookmarks folder with the bookmark named after what the song is called. They will not show up in your inventory unless you take them, but can still be freely used in any game you develop as long you are in the group.
Also in the scenario you proposed, the uploader of the audio could have just deleted the audio from their inventory, which would keep the audio file on roblox’s server but would not spoil the story for the users who decided to snoop in on the dev’s inventory.
I think there are better solutions to this - e.g. some kind of system for marking assets as private. I’m going to play around with the idea and if I can come up with something that works, I’ll propose it as a web feature. Alternatively, you could take it upon yourself to beat me to the punch.
My problem with this feature request is the lack of flexibility. I think that by marking assets as private, content owners should have control over who can see the asset on the site (creator only, creator and owners, etc.) rather than making something off-sale to hide it.
No support. I have to download assets from the site all the time, including assets that I don’t own. I don’t care if anyone steals the assets in my game, they can’t do anything with the assets alone.
