As a marketplace creator, virtual producer, and game dev, I am having a hard time understanding Epic’s current limited licensing strategy.
ISSUE
I would like to be able to have more granular control over the licensing agreements on custom content and assets.
Example
For example, under the current marketplace rules if I make and sell an environment any dev is free to use it after they “purchase” it on the market place.
Let’s now say another dev makes a program that assists in making and selling animated videos using the unreal engine as a virtual production tool. Which would be-- basically-- a re-skin of the unreal engine, but focused to make animated movies. The software would come pre-loaded with scenes, and animations… ect.
The issue is that the dev can sell and serve the content to thousands of “creators” who now are given the ability to use the content, though they could get sued for not owning the license…or if not, that may be even worse from my perspective…
Anyway-- this obviously creates a huge legal issue, as well as plenty of issues around not wanting to publish content because the licensing is so general.
Solutions
Here are a few various solutions, I’m sure there are many more.
- Separate the market place into various industry specific use cases. The current market place is seemingly aimed at the indie dev as the purchaser, however UE is now central to emerging industries like VP.
Having a virtual production market place that can organize digital rights and clearances on a per use level would be very beneficial to both the asset creators, and also the productions. High end digital assets are often too valuable to sell at low prices highlighted in the current marketplace and tend to exist else where in private markets.
- Complex digital rights management system.
Unreal is uniquely suited to lead in this solution. A complex system of digital rights management where creators can control their assets, and unreal engine can do load checks to see if the licenses are cleared. I would imagine a simple hash-code system could do this via Online Services. I have many ideas, strategies and tactics on this, but I am sure many ways could work as well.
While this would require some back end investment I think it could spur a lot more options on the market place. I am finding myself concerned for my copyrights, distribution rights, and profitability especially related to time investment to make the assets.
For example-- I live in Los Angeles, and have very different cost of living requirements than the creator’s who live in different markets, and without different licensing agreements I cannot really use the marketplace to sell and license my content, because as of now, the cost to produce the content is not being protected sufficiently.
Anyway, I love Unreal Engine… I think it could become a good mechanism to create a real metaverse, but the assets licensing needs more granularity. At least in this one creator’s opinion.
Please point out how I am wrong and this already exists!
Or any discussion, opinions, or plans…
Best,
Jordan Service
My Current scene I am hesitant to publish (wip)