Stopping Copied Avatar Items and Ripped 3D Assets on Roblox: An IP Protection Plan

You are a product manager at Roblox. How would you protect Roblox's intellectual property, meaning assets such as 3D models, character skins and avatar accessories? Explain your approach and how you would know it is working. ```hint Ask what a copier can actually get Consider what a determined copier can pull from their own device, and where on the platform a copy actually earns them something. That shapes which defenses can work and which cannot. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Whose intellectual property is in scope: items Roblox makes itself, items creators sell in the avatar marketplace, licensed brand items, or all three? - Which misuse matters most: copies resold in the marketplace, whole experiences cloned and republished, or assets ripped for use outside Roblox? - Is the priority protecting creator earnings, keeping brand partners, or limiting legal exposure? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Clarifying ownership and building a threat model: who copies which assets, how, and who loses - Recognizing the limits of technical prevention for assets rendered on players' devices, and combining prevention, detection, deterrence and remedies - Concrete mechanisms such as upload-time similarity checks, a provenance record, a claims and takedown flow, and penalties that remove the profit from copying - Trade-offs with remix culture, publishing speed for honest creators, false positives on common designs, and abuse of the claims process - Metrics for infringement prevalence, time to removal and creator trust, with guardrails on creator activity ### Follow-up Questions - A creator says a new hat copies theirs, but the two are only similar. How should the system decide, and who makes the final call? - How would you stop people from filing false claims to take down competitors' items? - What would you do about copies that were uploaded and sold before your detection existed?