I think it’s important to make the distinction between the following two types of copies:
“identical” copies - These items are exact copies of existing Roblox items.
“near-identical” copies - These items are not quite exact copies of Roblox items but are pretty similar. For instance, they might be missing eyes or have extra marks.
Identical copies should ideally always be taken down, and the changes I mentioned in the past referred to improvements for identifying and taking down identical copies. It’s possible for identical copies to slip through though, so feel free to share asset/bundle ids for items that are identical copies and I can help take a look.
Near-identical copies require a bit more thought, and these seem to represent a couple of the items mentioned in the report. Abuse reports are a great way to raise awareness about these items, but if you have example items that you’ve reported that believe should be taken down, feel free to share and I can confirm with our mod team what the expected outcome should be.
I understand this distinction is important, but for multiple reasons, it’s essential that near-identical copies are removed as well (as many have been previously). As previous responses have highlighted, by not removing near-identical copies, moderation is effectively allowing users to bypass moderation through methods like uploading multi-part faces or making slight alterations to infamous Roblox faces to avoid detection.
Navigate to the “Recommendations” section of any copied face, and you’ll consistently see examples of this. Moderation currently appears completely out of touch and significantly behind the problematic state of the catalog. Something urgently needs to change.
If you enter the name of any infamous face on the Rolimon’s deleted UGC page, you’ll notice near-identical faces have historically always been removed. It largely depends on whether the moderator chooses to perform their role correctly and adhere to established precedents. Due to this, I’m doubtful that asking the moderation team directly about the permissibility of these items will yield a proper (or realistic) answer, as each moderator interprets the rules differently and often disagrees (with many moderators outright rejecting all copied faces, regardless of similarity—which itself is a significant issue).
I also believe there might have been a misunderstanding—the original report you addressed did not specifically focus on identical copies. At the time, the best-selling Super Super Happy Faces were only near-identical, as they included eyelashes to evade moderation.
Currently, the issue has escalated further—again, it appears you might have overlooked that the top-selling copied head at the moment, the Epic Face, is a 1:1 exact copy.
Reporting via Report Abuse, DSA, or any other reporting method achieves nothing, and moderators consistently ignore the clearly-defined Marketplace Policy:
These faces violate the Marketplace Policy rule against copying official Roblox items, and as a user mentioned earlier, they also violate the rule prohibiting the upload of non-dynamic faces.
Overall, the main issue here isn’t that “they’re not identical, and moderators only remove identical copies”—rather, it’s that moderators seem completely uninformed (or perhaps have been instructed to deliberately ignore these reports), and refuse to remove ANY copied faces at all. To be completely honest, the only somewhat reliable method of having copied faces removed is by using “Report Abuse” with the reason “Other,” and even then, success depends entirely on which moderators are active. If you’re fortunate, a few identical or very similar copies with minimal favorites might be deleted. However, I’ve never seen Report Abuse succeed on items that have existed for more than a week with hundreds of favorites.
If you wish to improve moderation quality regarding these items (since I doubt it’s straightforward to handle this via validation), I recommend reviewing this more detailed report:
I hope this helps clarify the issue. I look forward to your response.
I’ll break down the previously mentioned points and try to provide answers to them:
Exact duplicate of Epic face exists on the marketplace - Thanks for pointing this out. I’ve pushed an update to help moderators identify exact duplicates of the Epic face during the review process that should prevent more copies from being uploaded. I’ll forward the item you’ve linked to moderators, and feel free to share more exact duplicates of this or other faces when you run across them.
Near duplicates (or “near-identical copies”) exist on the marketplace. Moderators don’t accept reports on these items - For these reports, have you been sending emails to this email: Copyright_agent@roblox.com? Reports submitted through other methods might not be actioned upon since the category on the report isn’t “IP Infringement”.
Items being combined to make copies of classic faces - Are there examples of which items can be combined to replicate the face?
Couldn’t agree more - Every dynamic head which doesn’t display atleast one frame of animation should be promptly eliminated and the owners account shall be executed.
Thank you again for continuing to follow up on this.
Appreciate this—will do. That said, the bundle still hasn’t been removed, and it represents only a tiny fraction of the overall issue. There are thousands of identical copies currently live on the marketplace, many of which were uploaded after the original bug report was prematurely marked as “Fixed.” This really doesn’t instill much confidence that the “update” you mentioned will fully prevent future uploads, and it highlights a bigger need for clearly defined moderation protocols to address these assets. I shouldn’t have to manually link every offending item in this thread either—there used to be avenues for reporting that actually led to takedowns.
But just to make a point, here’s a small sample of the many 1:1 copied faces I’ve encountered recently (yes, this is only a small fraction of what’s out there):
I think there’s a misunderstanding here. To my knowledge, Roblox has never taken down catalog asset copies via IP infringement claims—that would trigger a “Copyright Violation” takedown reason. Instead, all removals I’ve seen have used the “Spam” category. Copyright-related takedowns carry more severe consequences (three strikes = account termination), whereas “Spam” strikes merely lead to temporary UGC suspensions. The takedowns clearly fall under the purview of regular moderation, not the copyright team. And to reiterate my main point, moderation has become completely unresponsive—even for blatant 1:1 copies.
For what it’s worth, I did try contacting the suggested email anyway—and as expected, received a canned, non-helpful response within hours:
I appreciate that you’re trying to offer potential alternative explanations, but at this point, it feels like we’re grasping at hypotheticals to justify why these reports are going nowhere. Whether it’s “they’re not exact copies”, “the wrong report category was used”, or “mods can’t handle IP-related reports”—none of those reasons hold up anymore. This issue stems from inconsistent and ineffective moderation policy, plain and simple, and that’s what needs to change.
Some examples have both parts uploaded by the same group, while others are mixed and matched. Either way, none of this content is original—it’s all directly ripped and reused from existing Roblox IP, whether that’s just the mouth, just the eyes, or both. None of the content is original.
I’ll use the same format as my previous responses and break down the various points we’ve talked about:
“Identical” copies - Thanks for sharing the additional list of items! A portion of the these items aren’t considered “identical” copies, but I’ve forwarded the entire list to moderators. Note that it might take a couple days for moderators to process the list and moderators may also decide that certain items aren’t similar enough to be considered copies.
“Near-identical” copies - It sounds the main concern is being unable to have reports on near-duplicates be actioned upon. I’ll do more investigating on my end and respond with more details in the future, thanks for your patience!
Combination of items make copies - These kinds of items can be challenging for our moderation systems and for moderators to detect. I don’t have any updates here at the moment, but we’ll continue to look into this issue.
For other topics (for instance, Korblox items or dynamic heads that don’t animate), feel free to start a new post.
Following up to note that a good chunk of the previously-linked faces were deleted this morning. However, it seems quite a few identical copies have been missed (when others that looked exactly like them were deleted in the same wave). I’m unsure if this is due to an internal error, or possibly moderation being unaware of the original versions. I’ve gone ahead and linked the ones that were missed, along with their original counterparts below. I hope you can have these last few removed and that this information improves moderation efficiency in handling these reports.
Also, as an FYI, the few non-identical copies I linked were all deleted, so hopefully this helps clarify that moderation does take action on these kinds of items.
#2
This bundle was uploaded today, passing validation with no issues. Can you look into how it was allowed through? I somewhat suspected that the patch would be ineffective, and it seems I was right in my suspicions.
I hope improvements continue to be made here until these systems are robust and difficult to get around. Currently, this clearly isn’t the case.
#3
Thanks for this, look forward to hearing back. However, even some identical copies, especially lesser-known ones, aren’t being removed (as previously mentioned). A good starting point would be for moderators to accept all reports of 1:1 copies when the original face is clearly linked, before then moving on to near-identical or multi-part cases. Currently, even identical copies are unnecessarily difficult to remove. Wanted to clarify this.
This is all for now. Will continue monitoring this issue and providing you with updates where necessary. Thanks for your help up to this point—it’s good to see these kinds of issues being addressed, at least to some extent.
All of the missed faces were deleted this morning—thanks so much. The issue that remains is, as I previously mentioned, this is only a small sum of them. How would I go about reporting the other few hundred I have my eye on? Would I have to send them all in this thread or is work being done to reopen/dramatically improve regular reporting avenues for these items? All good if this is still being worked on, no rush at all. In the meanwhile, I’d appreciate if this bug report could be used as an avenue to report best-selling faces that pop up in the future, until stronger measures are put in place.
Also, a bit of a different (yet fairly related) issue—worth a shot posting about it here: aren’t UGC permissions supposed to be revoked for a certain time period when these heads are deleted? One specific creator has reuploaded a few that I linked earlier, just hours after the originals were taken down. The current system doesn’t properly penalize these users for their blatant rule-breaking behavior, in my opinion. Would I be better off creating a separate bug report/feature request for this topic?
Adding a couple more updates here! I’ll use the same format as my previous messages:
“Identical” copies - Thanks for bringing up the example bundle that is an exact copy of Roblox’s Epic Face! I won’t go into specifics, but our change successfully identified this bundle as a potential duplicate of Roblox’s Epic Face. This bundle’s approval was due to moderator error, and I’ve forwarded the bundle to the mod team for review. As always, there’s a chance of error from both moderators and our systems, so feel free to bring up more examples in the future.
“Near-identical” copies - We’re working on changes that will allow normal abuse reports against these types of items to be more effective, ideally leading to a higher takedown rate. It’ll likely take a couple months for these changes to be finished, thanks for your patience!
In the meantime, feel free to submit a normal abuse report first on these types of items. If that doesn’t work, let’s create a new post that’s solely dedicated for reports on similar faces (since this post is partially focused on policy). I’m still thinking about what the best process is here (and it may change over time), but I’ll check and respond to that thread every week or so. The format of copied ==> original was very helpful!
No updates here.
The issue of UGC permissions not being revoked can be a separate post!
Again, thanks so much. Your continued investment and communication here is much appreciated
I see. I totally understand human error happens, but I only check the Recently Published section a few times a day and have already found two more 1:1 Epic Faces that have been uploaded yesterday alone: exhibit A, exhibit B. If this is once again a result of human error, it might suggest some moderators could benefit from additional training on handling famous face duplicates, so I’d hope you could address this. If these faces slipped through for some other reason, however, I’d love to know what happened here!
Also, am I able to continue linking batches of 1:1 copies for deletion here? Rest assured I’ll also keep you updated if I notice any improvements to the system myself! Recently not much has changed. However, I have begun noticing increased takedown rates after abuse reporting recently created 1:1 copies. I’m not sure if this is coincidence or not… it’d be nice to know when the improvements you mentioned are rolled out (even if just partially) so I can know whether or not any changes I see are coincidental or not.
So good to hear that you have changes planned here! Aforementioned, please let me know once any of these are put in place. Just to confirm: you want me to create a new bug report on near-identical copies going under the radar of moderation, correct? And I’ll be able to list many of these for takedown in that thread? If this is so, do you think this already-existing thread could be used:
It’s solely based on near-identical faces being uploaded intentionally to bypass moderation. If not, that’s fine too. More than happy to make a new one if required.
Glad to hear. Do you think including this same format in the “report reason” field on abuse reports would be helpful to moderators, as well? Currently I do not include a reason. I just want to know if this would actually have any significant impact on the takedown rate or not, and if it’s worth my time, because currently there’s no way to tell if reasons are actually properly considered when moderators review abuse reports.
In regards to bundles, there is currently no option to provide a reason when reporting them—this is an issue in of itself that I think is preventing copies of lesser known Roblox-created faces from being moderated. Although this probably would fall under a whole different bug report/feature request, it’d be nice if you could confirm whether or not this actually is a limitation of the current reporting system for bundles in these scenarios. Moderators surely cannot know of every single Roblox-created face out there, right? Maybe adding a text field to bundle reports would help moderators better understand why the bundle is being reported?
Continuing same format as before for my responses!
“Identical” copies
Thanks for catching more identical copies of the Epic Face! I checked in with our policy team on why these weren’t moderated, and I’ve learned that even though these items do copy Roblox’s Epic Face, moderators are instructed not to action on them because the design is a public domain meme. Sorry about the confusion here.
Glad to hear that there’s increased takedown rates for 1:1 copies! I’m not aware of any changes on our end though.
Let’s start a single new post for reports on both identical copies and near-identical copies! I think this would help separate the policy discussion from the reported items.
“Near-identical copies”
Same point as above! A new thread would be great! Feel free to report identical and near-identical copies in the same thread. Also feel free to post the thread link here so I don’t miss it.
Combination of items make copies
No updates here.
For your question about comments, comments are definitely helpful for moderators! You’re correct that there’s currently no option to include report reasoning for bundles. A separate post raising this issue would be great as well!
As always, thanks for your continued follow-ups here, and sorry for taking so long to get back to you on this!
I’m going to divide this message into two sections: one addressing the “Epic Face” decision you’ve informed me of (as this is large enough to be its own section), and the second section addressing the other points you made.
Epic Face Situation
Before I start, I want to preface this by saying I don’t intend any disrespect or attitude, and I apologize in advance if any of what’s said below comes off as aggressive or rude. Please know that this is not my intention — I’m only trying to better the quality of the catalog. I hope these points and suggestions for change can be passed on to the right people by yourself.
Your latest response regarding the ‘Epic Face’ being a public domain meme, and that this supposedly excuses allowing 1:1 copies, is completely unsatisfactory.
There are multiple critical issues with your reply that I’m outlining in full detail below:
1. “Public domain meme” excuse is irrelevant and false
After doing proper research, there is no credible evidence that “Epic Face” is public domain. It originated on Roblox in 2009, created by user “bluescreenguy,” and Roblox itself published it. Public domain status means the original creator intentionally relinquished all rights — there’s no record of that happening here. Therefore, your excuse is factually wrong and cannot justify allowing spammed 1:1 copies.
2. Hundreds of Epic Face copies are being deleted constantly
Your claim that moderators are instructed not to delete Epic Face copies does not align with reality. As shown in the attached screenshot, hundreds of Epic Face copies have been deleted over the last few months, including some as recently as hours ago.
Therefore, the moderation team is treating Epic Face like any other copied asset and removing duplicates regularly. This makes it seem as if the mod team’s ‘explanation’ is simply an excuse to avoid action and does not reflect actual moderation behavior across the site.
3. Allowing copies is completely unfair to Epic Face owners
Epic Face was originally sold for a significant amount of Robux and has long been regarded as a prized, rare collectible. Many users have spent hundreds of thousands of Robux over the years to acquire it, under the assumption of its exclusivity. Letting anyone upload 1:1 copies undercuts the original owners and devalues the rarity, effectively ripping off those who invested in it. This situation is completely unfair to legitimate Epic Face owners.
4. “Spam” is the takedown reason, not “IP infringement”
Even if Epic Face were public domain (which it’s not), this doesn’t matter — the reason these copies are deleted for is “spam,” not IP infringement. Roblox has full jurisdiction to remove any item for spam without needing a copyright basis. There is absolutely no legal obstacle preventing the deletion of these 1:1 copies under Roblox’s spam policy.
5. Current inconsistency is unacceptable
Right now, moderation decision-making is extremely inconsistent on Epic Face copies — some get deleted, some are left up, depending on who reviews the report. It’s hard to imagine how this terrible reasoning started — did someone appeal a takedown saying “Epic Face is public domain” and moderation just blindly accepted it without any research or policy update?
Epic Face copies still seem to have the same deletion rate as other copied faces — if one has low favorites it gets taken down quickly — yet manually reported ones (with many favorites) are the ones being denied by engineer escalation for some reason. This only highlights the broken inconsistency at play here.
6. Roblox’s own policy clearly forbids this
Referencing the Marketplace Policy:
“Do not create items that closely or directly copy existing Roblox-created Limiteds.”
This makes it extremely clear that creators are not allowed to copy Roblox Limiteds like Epic Face. The current refusal to take down these copies violates this stated rule.
Proposed Resolutions:
I’m hoping for one of two resolutions to this issue: Option 1 (ideal) is for this faulty internal policy to be reversed and for Epic Face copies to continue being moderated the same as any other copied face on the platform.
Option 2, if moderation insists on ignoring all the reasoning I have laid out, is to ensure that all moderators are formally instructed to consistently allow Epic Face copies through validation and never delete them, so that the inconsistency problem is resolved.
In either case, moderation must be made consistent and all moderators must be informed properly about whether or not to take down Epic Face copies. The current system is chaotic and unacceptable.
Other Points!
Any updates you can provide now on whether any changes have been rolled out since your last reply?
Got it. Any ideas for a title for the report? I’m not too sure how to make it distinct from this report, including the description. Some guidance here would be helpful, without being too specific of course. Or would a PM possibly work better for simply reporting assets?
I’ll work on making a feature request for this! I just don’t have much hope it’ll be addressed quickly, given moderation’s current workload. But thanks for the advice anyway — I’ll try to get something submitted.
Alright, so about this “Epic Face” thing and whether it’s public domain or not. You’re saying this “bluescreenguy” on Roblox created it in 2009, and because Roblox supposedly “published” it, it’s not public domain. I get where you’re coming from with that.
But the internet’s a wild place, right? Stuff pops up in one corner and then spreads like crazy without anyone really keeping track of who owns what. And with “Epic Face,” the story definitely seems to go back a bit further than 2009 and Roblox.
And yeah, there’s this blogger, Chris Ainsworth, who actually tracked down the person who drew the original. This artist said it was just a little emoticon they whipped up for a Pokemon forum called Pokemopolis, like, way back when. They even said:
“I drew the icon years ago as part of an emoticon set he wanted for their new forum software… I’m not really sure what exactly I wanted it to represent but I think the ‘ridiculous childish glee’ that it now signifies is probably close!”
So, this wasn’t some official, copyrighted creation. Just a little forum doodle. The artist was even totally surprised when they started seeing it everywhere:
“I’m also a member at Something Awful and the first time I saw it posted I did a double take… I even remember my mind racing as to why and HOW someone had picked up a crappy lil’ icon off a tiny website… I assume a Pokemopolis member posted it on 4Chan.”
Think about it – someone just grabbed this simple smiley from a small forum, and bam! It ends up all over Something Awful and then 4chan. Know Your Meme even mentions a Something Awful thread from January 2007 (https://the-know-your-meme-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Awesome_Face_/_Epic_Face) where people were already complaining about seeing it too much!
“On January 30th, 2007, a forum thread was posted to Something Awful titled “NEW EMOTICON HITS SOMETHING AWFUL – BUT HOW POPULAR IS TOO POPULAR?” that complained about how the emoticon and its derivatives were becoming too prevalent on the SA forums. The face spread to 4chan…”
Now, about Roblox… Interestingly, if you look at the Awesome Face page on the Characters Fandom wiki (Awesome Face | Fictional Characters Wiki | Fandom), while it does document the character and its various appearances and uses across the internet, including its presence on Roblox, there is no information suggesting that “bluescreenguy” was the original creator of the Awesome Face. In fact, the details provided about its origins point back to the earlier creation for the Pokemopolis forum and its subsequent spread through platforms like Something Awful and 4chan. This aligns with the idea that Roblox adopted an already popular and widespread internet meme rather than being its point of origin.
And the original artist? They never seemed to try and claim ownership or anything. They were just kind of amused and maybe a little bummed they didn’t get any cash for it!
“I never expected it to become such a widespread meme… Sure wish I could get some commission for the design though haha.”
Doesn’t sound like someone with a copyright locked down tight, does it?
So yeah, maybe this “bluescreenguy” uploaded it to Roblox in 2009. But all the signs point to the “Epic Face” being out in the internet wilderness way before that, spreading like crazy without a clear owner. That often means it’s become part of the internet’s collective unconscious – pretty much fair game for everyone, even if there isn’t a formal “public domain” certificate hanging somewhere.
It’s definitely frustrating when complete recreations of the Epic Face are being deleted involuntarily while having no intention to copy the face that Roblox made.
What we shared above equally applies to items that we created as well. We’ve found that the majority of complaints we see about copies of Roblox-created items do not in fact infringe on our IP. We do enforce our own rights when items infringe on our IP, but IP protections do not necessarily extend to every idea presented in a work, but rather the original and unique elements of a work.
Roblox does not legally own the rights to the Epic Face meme, likewise a traffic cone, so taking them down is a massive disservice to creators. At the same time, I can understand owners of the original item being upset, to which this is a complicated issue.
So, when Roblox says that most complaints they get about copies of their items don’t actually violate their IP, that really applies to this whole “Epic Face” situation. The original complaint was about copies, but that’s the kind of thing Roblox themselves say isn’t an infringement.
And when they specifically mention that their IP protection is for “original and unique elements,” it makes you think about the “Epic Face.” It’s a pretty basic smiley, and it was all over the internet way before it was big on Roblox, going back to a simple emoticon made for a Pokemon forum. So, is it really “original and unique” enough for them to care about copies?
Based on their own policy, it sounds like Roblox probably wouldn’t even bother taking action on “Epic Face” copies. So, it makes sense to bring back all the “Epic Face” items that got taken down. And yeah, definitely let all the moderators know it’s not a problem anymore, or maybe even get the appeals team to give these things the green light from now on.
Firstly, it’s important to mention that there’s definitely some apprehended bias here from both of you: you’ve both been uploading copied faces for years now (and no, not exclusively Epic Faces either) and made what I can only assume is thousands of dollars in profit from them. It’s clear to me that you don’t want these revenue streams to disappear, and that’s why you’re responding the way that you are. I’m not going to delve further into this point or the reasoning behind it, because it’ll sway off-topic from the original report — but you both know exactly what I’m referring to.
Thanks for the detailed write-up regardless. I’ll try my very best to assume you’re simply a normal user of the platform rather than a creator who profits from these faces, and give you an equally technical response in return.
You’re right that the “Awesome Face” meme existed before Roblox, originating from a Pokémon forum and spreading online by 2007. I should have worded my point more precisely: Roblox did not create the original meme itself, but rather adapted it into their own platform-specific asset, “Epic Face,” which they published and sold as a Limited item. However, this doesn’t automatically make the asset public domain. Just because something is widely shared online doesn’t mean it legally loses all copyright protections — and there’s no evidence the original creator ever formally released it into the public domain.
This broader origin story doesn’t change the fact that under Roblox’s own Marketplace Policy, creators are prohibited from uploading copies of Roblox-published Limiteds, including Epic Face. Roblox still fully retains rights to moderate and enforce against unauthorized 1:1 copies of their published assets. So, even if the meme is popular online, it doesn’t excuse the spam of copied versions on the Roblox marketplace, and Roblox remains fully within its rights to take them down.
Just to clarify here: this discussion is referring to 1:1 identical copies, and those that are extremely similar to the originals. I have an entirely different stance around “complete recreations” (assuming you’re referring to those that are significantly different from the originals), so you don’t need to worry about these kinds of assets!
This is actually super interesting — thanks for pointing it out. But I think you’ve misinterpreted this a little, as has raskolibov in his response to your reply.
The article points out that Roblox doesn’t enforce IP on generic ideas like a traffic cone or a baseball cap because basic concepts can’t be copyrighted. However, when it comes to specific original expressions — like a Limited item with unique stylization (such as Epic Face) — Roblox absolutely retains the right to enforce takedowns.
You’re also overlooking the very important wording:
“We will not request the removal of completely different traffic cones made by other creators.”
The key phrase here is “completely different.”
That obviously implies that if someone uploads a direct or near-direct copy of the Roblox version, enforcement would still apply.
Epic Face isn’t just a “smiley face” idea — it’s a specific, unique published asset that Roblox sold as a Limited item. Uploading 1:1 copies isn’t just reusing an idea, it’s copying the exact expression of that idea, which Roblox very clearly states is protected under their IP rights and enforcement policies.
So while the meme existed before Roblox, that doesn’t mean Roblox forfeited rights to the specific Epic Face Limited they published, and it definitely doesn’t prevent them from removing identical or spammed copies within their own marketplace.
And again, this is just addressing one of the extensive list of points I made. Thank you for at least somewhat acknowledging the others.
Thank you on the other hand for completely disregarding every other one of my points, my friend. Your bias is quite clear to me — and hopefully, it’s clear to other users in this thread too.
Let’s end this discussion here to avoid any further unproductive debate. I’ll assume things will remain as they are regarding this face for now, and once my feedback is passed on to moderation, they can make a more definitive decision from there.
(this one is new to the list, but should be deleted based on precedent: 
