I’ll do some more digging but it’s really obvious where “his” models are coming from. Is just reporting him enough? Seems like he’s just making new accounts all the time. NetEase looks like a pretty big company, I wouldn’t mess with them if I were him.
Unity chooses not to act on any such reports. They could do something, but don’t. If I am most generous, they fear they might determine rights-holding arguments wrongly in a muddled situation. If I am more cynical, they find that ignorance is more profitable than investigations.
I’m more happy knowing I didn’t buy those models. I was looking for toon models and had them bookmarked. Guess I should research things a little more for now on.
I think you’re trying to suggest that DMCA restricts what a publisher can do in the face of allegations of copyright infringement. It’s the other way around. If the ostensible owner posts a notice, then the publisher must act. I am not talking about that at all.
DMCA says nothing about what the publisher must do, should do, is morally justified in doing or not doing, if some observant but uninterested third party says HEY YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT THIS RIPPED OFF SPONGEBOB THING, MAYBE TWINKLETOES69 ISN’T PART OF NICKELODEON AND NOT THE HEIR TO STEPHEN HILLENBERG. If Unity looks at what’s on their site for any reason, including their own due diligence, or including some random person pointing out an obvious ripoff, then Unity can choose to act, and it’s my opinion that they are morally obligated to do so.
All published assets uploaded to Unity when the publisher states that they have the rights to publish such content. I really don’t understand what do you mean “can choose to act”. There is no legal term “obvious ripoff”, the publisher stated that they have the copyright to release the asset. There is no obvious ripoff.
Moreover in circumstances, Unity can be held liable if they choose to wrongfully remove some user content from their sites. Which may or may not a real threat to Unity at any given time, but certainly makes a bad idea to just removing assets based on “random person’s” opinion. Because “random person” isn’t in contractual relationship in this matter, the publisher and Unity do. Also Unity does not have any way knowing what kind of license the publisher has. And you don’t have any way knowing either, you just choose to rely on “obvious ripoff”, which is either true or false, there is no way of knowing.
So yes, I understand why you’re saying what you’re saying, but I also think that you’re wrong.
Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, whatever I stated here is my opinion, blablabla…
If it is legit then cool, if not, then lets hope they contact unity to have them removed. In the mean time I hope unity freeze this persons account temporarily until this is resolved.
Really? If I run a shop I can choose what products I do and don’t want to sell at my own discretion. I’m pretty sure Unity similarly aren’t obliged to sell anyone’s particular product. I doubt they have to give a reason.
I understand that they can’t be expected to recognise every possible copyright infringement, but if one is brought to their attention I, as a customer, sure as heck want them to do something about it. Otherwise I can’t even slightly trust what’s on their store, and using anything from there is high risk.
Indeed, they have conditions that are vague enough to let the pull anything, most stores do. It’s up to them (unity) to balance how they want deal with it. People incorrectly complain about “rips” all the time. And people post stuff they don’t have the rights to. Dunno what the ratio of those occurrences are. But Unity has to weigh how much time they want to invest in investigation (a few hours of staff time could represent more than an asset will ever net them). They don’t want to unecessarly tick off asset producers with false claims. And they don’t want to tick off customers with having to pull files or pass on problems to them. Really it all kind of sucks for the people who deal with that.
That’s why I make games and don’t do customer service or anything related to commerce. Blech…
I hope Unity removes these assets. For game models, pretty much the only places I trust are the Unity asset store and OpenGameArt. Turbosquid and CGTrader are crawling with stuff like this. It’s a pain to have to thoroughly research the models on these sites so I always check if the asset store or OGA has what I need first.
I don’t want to see the asset store turn into a copyright minefield as well.
Unfortunately if big outfits like turbosquid and CGtrader whose sole purpose is to operate an asset store struggle to remove them all (they do remove them when copyright owners report) then I doubt UAS will ever be better in that regard.
Personally I think UAS does pretty well compared to others in terms of % of stolen content available
Yes, really. Please, keep in mind, I’m still not a lawyer. But there were cases when these non-negotiable contracts didn’t hold up exactly and if the other party get some damages due to takedowns, they may can seek compensation for the damages. Also Section 230, I believe, protects Unity by default, unless the court finds that it is used on a wrong way. The DMCA defines the way how providers should be notified and how copyright holders should notify providers about their wish to remove their copyrighted material. If Unity do other ways (like removing content on third-party notice) it is a danger that a court would deem section 230 no longer in play because the attached rules weren’t followed.
Obviously I’m not a lawyer, so I’m just drawing my own conclusions based on my limited knowledge of law and pervert interest in court cases. I could easily be wrong, I’m just stating why I think what I think.
DMCA defines a way for copyright holders to issue specific takedown orders. It’s defined so the publisher cannot claim ignorance. It’s not the only way that a publisher can be notified.
Section 230 is about the Communications Decency Act, and has little to do with copyright at all. It holds publishers like this forum administration to have a little bit of “safe harbor” from outside calls to hold the publisher liable for falsehoods, slander/libel, indecent materials, and the like. Publishers are seen as offering content that has not been formally reviewed before publication, and far more than they could possibly review before publication, so holding them liable for the things posters say is too big a risk for an open society. The Unity Asset Store requires specific Unity approval for every asset posted, so Section 230 has far less power if any at all.
And both DMCA and Section 230 are specifically American law, not global law, so there are definitely concerns about international companies and their commitments to agreed/treaty/standardized conventions like the Berne Convention.
The EULA is written so that Unity can remove whatever they want, but they rarely do. If there’s a copyright issue then you can report the asset to them and notify whomever owns the content so that the copyright owner can send Unity a DMCA for the asset.
The store team is generally not going to act on something without a DMCA notice unless it’s completely obvious that there’s an issue and the asset has traction which would affect users negatively. In all other circumstances the copyright owner must file a DMCA notice and then Unity is required to remove the content until the publisher contests the takedown notice. If they do not contest it, then it stays removed. If they do contest it, then the entity that issued the DMCA basically has to file a suit on the violator, but the violator is in deep crap if they lie because contesting it is legally binding - asserting that you own the content rights.
Generally, these are taken care of reasonably well and repeat violations are tracked.