Asset Store Piracy

Piracy has been around since the dawn of the internet. One can't ignore it away.

The problem

In 2022 the popular FilmCow channel on youtube made a video about some very suspicious assets being sold on the Unity Asset Store, Unreal Market, and Itch.io.

Why should I care? I bought the asset in good faith so I am fine, right?

In most jurisdictions, you are responsible for confirming that you have the proper license for an asset and it is not enough to show a receipt from an asset store. If the proper copyright holder comes along and sees his/her asset being used in your product then he/she can contact you and ask for that confirmation. If that copyright holder then finds out that you have licensed from an illegitimate source (pirated asset) then he/she can sue you.

You in turn can then also sue the entity that sold the asset to you to recoup the loss you have had with paying off the original copyright owner.

Most stores have their asset providers sign some kind of ".. under penalty of perjury .." clause. This means that if it turns out that the provider does not have a license to sell the asset then the store operator can legally decline to be responsible. They will tell you that you have to sue the asset provider instead. So, no, you can not (easily) sue Unity or Unreal if the asset was pirated.

Suing the seller, if it is indeed a pirate, will be a dead end most of the time. Hint: that's why the original copyright holder will sue you and not the pirate. You are the righteous one who can not run or hide and thus you are their best bet to actually get some money.

> This is not legal advice! Go ask a lawyer.

What can happen

If someone finds unlicensed content in your game then they can issue a DMCA Takedown Notice. This will force you (or the service provider that sells your game) to remove it from sale immediately. Important detail: they have to be the copyright owner for the infringed material. It's not like everyone can file a DMCA if they are suspicious.

You will be notified if a DMCA has been filed against your product. Once you have received a DMCA you have the option to send a counter-notice if you disagree with it (i.e. you are sure you have licensed everything properly).

Once a service provider has received a DMCA counter-notice they must wait 10 to 14 days. To keep the game from being sold the copyright owner has to sue you in that time frame. If no suit is filed then everything will return to normal and your game can be sold again.

The sad news is, whether you are right or not, your game will be blocked for about two weeks.

> This is not legal advice! Go ask a lawyer.

Don't panic!

It is very rare for some copyright holders to actually sue a developer. Sure we all have heard of some big cases like that pirated 'oof' sound clip being used in Roblox [5] but these are usually between big companies and established artists. Businesses tend to sue only if there is some money to be made.

If you are a small indie with no hit games (aka no money) then don't panic. Just replace the asset with something you know you have the proper license for and move on.

> This is not legal advice! Go ask a lawyer.

How did Unity react to piracy?

As far as we know Unity did not contact any purchasers of the affected assets. The asset itself was deprecated.

Sadly it looks like the Unity Asset Store cannot add additional information to the default deprecation message. Telling people about the copyright issue would have been crucial information.

As it stands now I as a customer can not differentiate between assets that have been deprecated and those that have been pulled from the store because of copyright issues.

This is not good enough:

Unity still offers a link to download the asset for people who have purchased it.

How did Unreal react to piracy?

Unreal did a bit better than Unity since they let their customers know what's up. However, it is unknown (to us) whether customers have been able to get a refund for any of the affected assets.

Where was the QA?

It may be unreasonable to expect Unity or Unreal to check every asset for copyright issues. Doing that manually is just not financially viable and automating it comes with its own problems (see Google's Content ID system etc.).

It can be expected that the asset store team was also hit by the big round of lay-offs at Unity in 2022 [4]. One might speculate that their resources were stretched thin at the time.

However, some of these assets have been part of official sale events (Unity) [2] or featured as free content (Unreal) [3]. That's not okay. Assets used in promotions should be checked for potential copyright issues. These companies are putting their customers at risk.

There is a solution

The obvious fact is that piracy won't go away. And with the dawn of AI-generated assets, we are heading towards interesting times.

Most AI companies claim their results can be used without any additional licensing. As usual with new technologies, the legislation is lacking behind. No one knows if those claims will hold in court.

Some stores deal with it in a rather pragmatic way. They simply accept that piracy exists and that they have to do something to protect their customers. Shutterstock for example offers "limited liability" in their license [6]. That means if an asset was pirated and you bought it in good faith they will cover some of your costs. This is how you deal with this issue professionally. Something that Unity et all could learn from.

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Sources

  1. Youtube Video by "FilmCow": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qtk2CsuDWA
  2. Unity Forum threads (publisher access only, not public): https://forum.unity.com/threads/copyright-issues-with-audio-bundles.1386321 , https://forum.unity.com/threads/piracy-in-the-arcade-sale.1415832,
  3. User Report of how Unreal handled the "copyright issue": https://forum.unity.com/threads/outclassed.1410042
  4. Unity Lay-Off article (Gamasutra/Gamedevloper): https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/unity-software-to-lay-off-nearly-300-employees
  5. Roblox & Tommy Tallarico: https://venturebeat.com/business/tommy-tallarico-settles-copyright-dispute-with-roblox-over-oof-sound/
  6. "Limits of Liability" in the Shutterstock license: https://www.shutterstock.com/license