Introducing the NoAI and CreatedWithAI tags

Distribution UE Marketplace
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We are updating our Epic Content License Agreement and introducing product tags to give you greater control over how your work is used in connection with generative AI programs and how you search for content, inspiration, and more on Unreal Engine Marketplace.

We are also updating our Epic Content License Agreement and Marketplace Distribution Agreement to reflect these changes.

Recently, there have been lively discussions in the digital art community about generative artificial intelligence (AI)—how it’s used, what it means for creators, and what it means for those exploring art communities in order to commission artworks or recruit talent. We have heard these concerns and are sensitive to them. While the world of 3D AI is still relatively young, we are working to lay the foundation for how creators allow their work to be used (if at all) by generative AI programs and how creators’ AI-generated content is tagged and discovered.

All of the assets you create and distribute on the Unreal Engine Marketplace belong to you. Per our upcoming Content License Agreement update, we will not use your artwork or license it to other companies for use with generative AI programs.

We are keeping an eye on how the field of 3D AI is developing and we are regularly discussing how we can continue to support our community as unexpected or previously unimagined scenarios arise.

Control how your work is used

Starting today, the “NoAI” product tag will indicate to generative AI programs that a product is not to be used for generative AI data collection. In the coming weeks, we’ll be updating the UE Marketplace so that adding the “NoAI” tag to the product will also add an HTML meta tag to your product, marking it as disallowed for use by generative AI programs.

In the next few weeks, we will also be adding the ability to bulk tag all your past and future asset listings in the seller portal. This will apply the “NoAI” tag and HTML meta tag to all of your products.

Share how you created your work

Unreal Engine’s diverse and multi-talented community includes members who dabble in or are heavily invested in AI experimentation. We require community members who use AI to generate content for distribution through the Unreal Engine Marketplace to add the “CreatedWithAI” tag to their content.

Please note: the latest Epic Content License Agreement and Distribution Agreement require products that are made available for download be tagged as “CreatedWithAI” if they have been made with generative AI programs.

Not only will this tag help provide increased transparency around how products have been created, but it will also help other community members to find what they are looking for more easily.

Epic Content License Agreement and Marketplace Distribution Agreement updates

In tandem with the introduction of the “NoAI” and “CreatedWithAI” tags, we are introducing some changes to our Epic Content License Agreement.

  • If you wish to protect your content from usage by generative AI programs, you may tag your content “NoAI”.
  • You (and other users) agree not to use content marked as “NoAI” in datasets for, in the development of, or as inputs to generative AI programs.
  • If you make your work downloadable, you agree to tag any of your content that is available for download and that has been made with the use of generative AI programs as “CreatedWithAI”.
  • Epic agrees not to use any of your content in datasets for, in the development of, or as inputs to generative AI programs.
  • Epic agrees not to license any of your content to third parties for use in datasets for, in the development of, or as inputs to generative AI programs.

Additionally, we have updated our Marketplace Distribution Agreement, which governs the rights and obligations of sellers on the Unreal Engine Marketplace. Here’s what’s changed:

  • Seller’s ability to tag content with “NoAI” tag is explicitly called out.
  • Sellers agree to apply the “CreatedWithAI” tag to any of their assets that have been created with generative AI programs.
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We’ve added the ability for sellers to bulk tag their items in the Seller Portal so that the HTML meta tag is applied. However, this is currently not displayed on the product details page of a product. We plan to add that functionality as an additional update.

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“We care about protecting creators and providing the tools to protect their creations. You are able to tag your projects containing your Content with “NoAI” if you would like your Content to be prohibited from use with AI. This tag will not be applied to your projects or your Content by default; you must actively designate your projects containing your Content for the “NoAI” tag to apply.”

Regardless of this “NoAI” tag being efficient or not in practice (because scrapers will happilly bypass it anyways), it should be on by default. Not having it be the default and thus making it “opt out” sends a very bad signal …

As a matter of fact this actually goes contrary to IP/copyright law, since every creation is protected by default. A tag that would make more sense would be something along the lines of like “I explicitly grant a license allowing the scraping of this content for use in ML models”, with it being off by default.

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why this take forever to finish?

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One should not have to specify that they do not agree to AI! Its like having to specify that you do not want to get robbed otherwise robbing you would be ok. Having it default to scraping data is what seems to be the desire going forward from you guys? Also AI harms artist as we have seen this year so how can one consent to being harmed! One cannot consent to being harmed so deeply financially? If you get consent it would probably be from people who do not understand how they are being harmed and how in the long term they will be deeply financially hurt. You as a big company with big brains cannot pretend you don’t know this. You are letting down ALL the artist and creatives.
Proceed ethically.

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I assume you do know that the “noAI” tag is useless, as the bots scrapping the content for the AI datasets just ignore html tags?
It’s completely up to the people managing the AI datasets if they care about this tag and copyrights, which most AI datasets so far have shown not to.

So the question really is, if you become aware of AI datasets using assets from the marketplace despite the “noai” tag, will Epic take action and sue them & the AI generators using these datasets?
Because if Epic does not drag them to court, then this tag is just a meaningless PR gesture to calm the anger of the people who do not want their content been stolen.

Besides, the noai tag shouldn’t be an opt-in in the first place, but people should manually opt-out of it IF they want their content to be used for AI generators.

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Besides, the noai tag shouldn’t be an opt-in in the first place, but people should manually opt-out of it IF they want their content to be used for AI generators.

This is the first time I use this forum, but as someone on the other side of the conversation I wanted to also add my two cents.

Section 17 of the new ECLA [Epic Content License Agreement]

17. Artificial Intelligence

For purposes of this Agreement, “Generative AI Programs” means artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, or similar technologies designed to automate the generation of or aid in the creation of new content, including but not limited to audio, visual, or text-based content. You shall not collect, aggregate, mine, scrape, or otherwise use NoAI Content :neutral_face: :sleepy:(i) in datasets utilized by Generative AI Programs; (ii) in the development of Generative AI Programs; or (iii) as inputs to Generative AI Programs.

I was a master student on Machine Learning that made use of the flexibility of Unreal to use assets and create worlds in which I would virtually train my Ai using Reinforcement Learning/Imitation Learning the Tesla way. I came to EPIC knowing 0 >>Zero about game development. But thanks to UE5 I was able to create a great world after one year and half of trial and error. Testament to all the trailers and teasers about how easy and great UE5 is.
Due to this new agreement I do not see how someone like me would be able to save significant time of development, as you pointed it out yourself, the general consensus seems to be to tag everything [NoAi] by default.

Not everyone is using assets to create datasets duplicating and modifying your creations. There are some of us that use UE5 to create worlds like any other developer; but then, these worlds are intended to be played by Ai not Timmy from Ohio.

Anyhow. Just my 2 cents.

Thank you for the message. I am happy I finished my project before I had to clicked “I agree”. Issac it is.

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AI generators are copyright infringement. You wanna train ur AI program? Then built ur own f… assets. Stop stealing artwork that’s not yours. Glad the UE is putting a leash on these AI Thiefs by regulating their source of content.

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Why is this not obvious:

For what reason would potential client purchase assets from Unreal Marketplace when it’s just possible to generate them?

You are killing your own platform allowing AI-stolen stuff to flood it, just look at Artstation… Unfortunately, you are also killing our business in the frame of your platform. Ai-generated art should be equal to torrenting: it will exist beyond the legal world. You should discontinue the possibility to publish AI assets as well as delete any AI asset from the store and keep it clean.

If you want a proper case of handling AI-art, here it is: https://www.videogameschronicle.com…banning-games-featuring-ai-generated-content/

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Just a note, Valve later clarified that it is not banning AI content.

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thank you for share with us.

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Did you actually read the article? Because Valve clearly said it will not ship games that have AI generated content in it, as the legal ownership is unclear.

Quote article:

" … At this time, we are declining to distribute your game since it’s unclear if the underlying AI tech used to create the assets has sufficient rights to the training data."

Considering most AI tools can’t really claim to have legal rights to all their training data (and even if they do, it may still not be an ethical use of that data), this policy as stated basically amounts to a blanket ban on AI-generated assets in games.

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I wish the CreatedWithAI tag would be actually enforced. the 2d section is completely overrun with untagged ai content.

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EPIC, Please add a report option for falsly tagged Products on the marketplace. There are countless products that have added the tag “NoAI” which even state in the description the use of generateive AI or also use the tag “CreatedWithAI” at the same time.
This makes the “NoAI” Tag absolutely useless and filtering for developers a chore. Especially as the whole use of AI can be very important to developers as the above mentioned/linked article shows.

(And yes, I allready used your customer service for that exact issue and the answer was, that you can always use the customer service to hint to these things. It’s allready a bit rude that you make it my job as a customer to “clean” your marketplace but it’s even more so when you request us to go through the complicatet process of using the customer service with providing links and typing descriptions instead of being able to use the simple report button within your marketplace.)

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That is true. They are stupidly trusting that Sellers are going to be 100% honest by using that useless "NoAI"checkmark.

Since they don’t want to verify if it’s AI or not, let the client have an option to report it.