Exactly! In an ideal world, the seller would be removed from the marketplace for violations. There should be consequences for breaking the Marketplace Distribution Agreement, undermining the trust of buyers, and violating the law. (But seriously, I doubt anything like that will happen. 
)
5 Likes
Itās disappointing that Epic isnāt cracking down on this. Itās hard to have any confidence in the Unreal Marketplace when stolen assets appear so frequently. Using anything from there seems like a huge legal liability. The stolen sound effects mentioned above are no longer for sale on the Marketplace, but purchasers were not notified or refunded. Itās a massive risk.
5 Likes
and Unity was not guilty for it, and the copyright owner validated his rights, that is what I say the stores cannot work ex officio, neither unity store nor amazon nor epic, google play, etc.
Iām just saying if you see something illegal let the copyright owner know dont blame the store.
Well with some marketplace assets sometimes you just pay to have them already in the engine. If the animation is with the retarget to the mannequin and folders with pretty names and maybe he has even made sure that all work property, itās worth it to me.
In a marketplace the only thing you buy is time, in the end all the assets in the marketplace you could make yourself are just one
a matter of time or years hahaha. 
Once I bought an asset that was a 5-minute tutorial on YouTube but it was better to buy it.
One good thing about removing the questions in the marketplace is that we will stop seeing all those angry people saying donāt buy it, you can do it yourself
4 Likes
You are completely missing the point that Epic / the Epic marketplace team gave the seller money for his stolen asset AND promoted & shared it publicly, and were notified about parts of the asset being stolen, yet Epic knowingly ignored it AND kept promoting & sharing it regardless.
This is piracy territory, itās basically the same as sharing cracked games on a warez forum. And some of those people went to prison for that.
This case is quite different to Unity not checking each individual assets for its copyrights.
2 Likes
This pack got removed from the free monthly assets and it is no longer for sale on the marketplace either:
It is weird that Epic has not notified anybody about this if it involves potential rights issues.
6 Likes
So two of the five free assets from January were using stolen content, this is looking so bad for Epic.
Yeah, Epic is willfully putting every marketplace user who downloaded this pack into potential legal trouble. For what reason I cannot fathom, but it certainly isnāt out of care about us indie devs.
3 Likes
Oh my. Twice in a single month is extra bad. Thanks for the warning. I wouldnāt otherwise know as I can still just add this thing to my projects without any warning or issues 
3 Likes
Well crap. Glad I saw this. Deleting both from vault, and I guess Iāll have to start looking more deeply into where the content is from. Iām almost more disappointed in them than mad honestly, thatās shady.
2 Likes
i bought the volume 2 of this but havenāt used it in anything.
i wonder how i go about getting a refund months later lol.
2 Likes
makes me wonder how many assets on the marketplace used stolen stuff. thereās like an influx of sketchy looking assets from new accounts in the last day or so, which is alarming to see.
2 Likes
is this why they havent changed out the monthly freebies?
Ths is what i came to find out, if thats why there are no new freebies. But it seems to me this is purely unreals legal liability here, if they sold them as āclearā to use, its on them. I work in tv and film and we rent pictures/art from rental houses that āclearā them. If a rental house tells us its clear, and we get sued, the liability falls to the source, because thats their business. I cant imagine things would be different here. Maybe some runaround or emails, but in the end its unreals problem, especially for us little guys not making money on our games.
And you miss the point that you are not the copyright owner, have you already talked to Mixamo?
Maybe I think youāre making an overdrama, Tim Cook didnāt go to jail for selling, and that was material stolen from torchlit, the Armed Heroes Onlineās game.
Not even the creators were sued by it, they just changed the assets.
no. they update them on the first Tuesday of every month. they used to update them on the first of every month, but it probably made it hard for them during times like holiday times since the offices are closed until like the second or third week of January.
1 Like
thats makes sense 
I was filling up the survey for marketplace sellers and this popped up:
I donāt know what to think!
1 Like
Not sure if that fits into this discussion, itās an odd question though indeed. Seems to me like they are thinking about using multiple licenses like in the Unity marketplace.
1 Like
I think to answer that question, Epic would have to be much more clear on what constitutes āindemnified.ā Itās phrased as a question for buyers, not sellers, so Iām already somewhat confused as to who this question targets.
Indemnify against what exactly? Claims of asset misappropriation by a seller? Copyright claims by a third-party? Harm caused by loss of access to the files from Epic?
Personally, I think Epic should just do their due diligence and ensure that sellers have the rights to content. It seems like buyers now have to check assets before a purchase. Frankly, this is not always feasible without access to the files themselves, and that undermines confidence in the marketplace.
4 Likes
I assume they are looking into providing the types of licenses that are already granted by other 3D asset purveyors like TurboSquid etc. where the purchaser of an asset is indemnified against damage claims by some type of insurance: TurboSquid Can Now Indemnify 3D Stock Up To $1M - TurboSquid Blog
E.g. From the turbosquid licenses page:
Subject to sections 4 and 5 above, TurboSquid shall indemnify, defend, and hold you harmless from and against any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneysā fees made by any third party for copyright or trademark infringement due to or arising out of your use of the 3D Models in accordance with these Terms, but excluding any modifications made by You, if such infringement was caused by the modification.
This is not uncommon in the 3D modelling world, but itās bizarre that it hasnāt come up with the Epic marketplace until now since game assets are pretty much always purchases made with the intent of distribution (whereas 3D models from other sites are often used for one-off projects for clients in Architectural Visualization and other fields).
2 Likes