Most Roblox experiences have an audio player. Now, according to Roblox’s Terms of Service: [...] Creator may not use Licensed Music to create a streaming service or music library within an Experience or other UGC, [...]. Creator has the right to place, play, and have played up to 250 distinct tracks of Licensed Music at any one time in a single Experience or other UGC With Licensed Music. [...], provided that at any one time there are no more than 250 tracks in such Experience or UGC With Licensed Music.
So, my game is not about music at all, and that like any other, music playback is a side feature. Let’s say that I have 250 tracks, the maximum allowed on a single game. The player is grouped into 25 “albums”, 10 tracks each. The player can choose which albums to listen to.
In case you have no idea what I’m referring to, Rocket League has this exact system I’m talking about (where i took my inspo duh) so here’s a reference:
So I’m really just wondering if this is considered a “streaming service” instead of just an audio player most games have built in where you can play, pause and skip.
You can limit the maximum songs to 250, but what if more users use the system? It’s all on the client, but technically there’s more than 250 tracks in those experiences.
That changes the plot a bit, I never thought about that.
This is quite confusing though. Audio players are allowed in Roblox obviously, most games have it anyway. Mine would just be a modified version of it that allows you to choose what to not listen unlike conventional audio players that loops through audio.
Now, most audio players are server-based meaning everyone is playing the same song at the same time if I recall. Were mine to be local and each user having 250 songs, that’d technically break the terms. But the terms aren’t really clear - does it mean that “In the entire experience, you cannot play more than 250 different tracks”, across all clients?
There are client-based audio players though. These mostly surpass the combined 250 track limit, but I’m not sure. Other than contacting DevRel which I don’t know how, there’s only one way to figure it out.
Technically, the audio player I created runs on the client. It only has one sound instance, but it changes the ID, and the user can enter in sounds to insert into the playlist.
Does that count? It’s like an automated “swap out this ID for that one” kind of thing.
Plus, does Roblox’s definition of “streaming service” and “music library” mean “player can choose what to listen to and blah blah blah basically Spotify Apple Music or Deezer”? If that, then mine technically shouldn’t break the terms. It’s still shuffle and you just choose what you don’t want to listen. Okay well that may…
Plus it mentions 250 distinct tracks. Were I to play to, say, 20 tracks for 13 players, would that be considered more than 250 tracks, or is it still just 20 tracks?
No idea. Maybe it refers to the amount of audio instances in the game? Maybe it refers to the number of sounds loaded?
The music system I’ve created is just a playlist system, the user has to type in ALL the IDs manually. There can only be one song playing at any given time, through one sound instance. It’s also on the client.
It’s difficult to understand what the terms mean. We really need someone at Roblox to address this.
