Can non-music related sound assets be considered intellectual property, and protected by copyright, such as gun sounds, or UI button click sounds?
In addition to that, there are plenty of free sound effects in the catalog, so is it suggested to immediately remove those as well, if you don’t have sufficient information as to who created them originally? This topic seems to revolve around music, so I’m unsure if the same rules apply to some, or all sound effects.
And finally, do we have to email devrelations even if the audio in question is royalty free?
This isn’t really a question of whether or not things are intellectual property, it’s a question of whether or not Roblox is enforcing that without the need for a DMCA. From this post it would seem that they are only removing music, but any sounds made by someone else are their IP, and therefore may be removed because of a DMCA or future roblox action.
If I had a changing list of 250 songs, but ensured that, per server, only 250 of these songs would play, would this be ok? Or does the game need to be only able to play 250 songs ever? What if I wanted to switch out the list later on and remove the old audios for new ones from the same APM library?
Also, this setup seems very confusing for literally everyone on the platform, why put them in the library just like any other audio (especially for free) if they have restrictions on them that every other audio does not?
There is no “per-server” terminology used anywhere in this thread. This is per game. Your game may only be able to play up to 250 songs from this collection. It does not matter what one server plays versus the other, the restriction applies over your whole game’s version at any point in time.
You are free to add or remove songs to your game as long as your published version of the game doesn’t use an amount that exceeds 250 from this collection. (servers are not relevant)
This is an awesome move that will certainly help increase the quality of the sound in games. Though are there currently any plans for a streamlined way to confirm licensed music? I know this is something that comes up when doing things like featuring.
Roblox recently made a change to the “Make free to take” property, it is now displayed as such:
For intents and purposes of the featured category: you may assume you can freely use assets that are marked as “Allow Copying” (coming up as “Free” in the library).
How is the standard Roblox boombox going to deal with this 250 song limit?
It seems like you just have to completely block players from manually inputting the ID of any APM music track.
The uploader of the asset would be at fault there. Note that the asset would be removed/replaced if the copyright holder of that asset complains, so when in doubt it is better to find content yourself that is properly licensed and upload this yourself.
This seems loosely ruled, at what point is it counted as new vs old audios? If I allow players to play music using a radio [important to note that this is a Roblox gear] or similar item in my game, and I keep my collective players in all servers from playing >250 audios within what period of time? it’s not a violation?
In a case where the user is playing the audios themselves, there could be no audios in the ‘published version’, however, once published the audios are played in individual servers (of course part of one game); therefore there are no audios in the ‘published version’, only in the game while it’s running. Could we have some kind of explicit ruling on this?
If the 250 songs are variable through me updating my game, at what point is the line drawn? If I have old servers that remain open throughout updates, allowing players to play audios from the old selection, this is a violation of the rules, right? So every time I update my game I have to shutdown all the servers or it will be a violation of this rule.
I bought my music legitimately, and have proof of purchase. But how is Roblox going to know that? I am worried about your moderation system falsely flagging my legitimate music.
Comes with the side effect of no Roblox audios, though the developer accepts that when setting this restriction
Cannot play audios which aren’t up for free
This way, any developers can take their audio off sale if they don’t want everyone using it, and the boombox won’t invade on their choice to keep it private
All audios which are up for free are safe to be played by ID, besides APM music, right?
You can give a static list of 250 songs that players can choose from. You could vary this list of songs per version (whenever you update, it creates a new version) of your game.
You shouldn’t be moderated, but for completeness I’ll note that this is a slippery slope and exceptions will always apply that need to be dealt with on a case-by-case scenario. For example, for malicious behaviour such as uploading sounds on an alternate account and then claiming you couldn’t have known.
Wait so…What do I do with all the Viking songs I uploaded. How can I use those. Are they going to get deleted? I only use like 10 songs in my game so the 250 rule doesn’t apply to me. But will I still be able to use my Viking songs or is there a way to get them licensed if they are not already.
If the viking songs you use aren’t APM Music songs uploaded by Roblox, normal copyright laws apply, therefore it is possible Roblox will remove these audios if they are not licensed to you / royalty free.
The 250 limit is for APM Music songs uploaded by the Roblox account.
Servers are not part of the terminology used here, so this only applies to the single published version of your game (this is always 1, the newest version). You’re fine as long as your published version uses <= 250 items on this list.
