I asked some questions to a vendor on the marketplace about the product I purchased. I couldn’t fully understand the blueprints so I was hoping he could help me out.
But then I got an email from him that reverse engineering is not allowed by the marketplace rules and he can even reject my license.
Despite the fact that I wasn’t trying to “reverse engineer” anything, for argument’s sake let’s say that I was.
Reverse engineering is not allowed? Seriously?
As far as I understand there’s no such statement in the marketplace FAQ and the Marketplace Distribution Agreement.
And so far a number of vendors didn’t even make an issue about this.
On the off chance I missed something and reverse engineering is actually prohibited, then what’s the point of allowing users to modify the contents?
How can users modify the contents if they can’t understand them?
I haven’t seen anything in the TOS that prohibits revers engineering. As you said in many cases that is the point of marketplace products. Not everyone is purchasing content to use in a game, some purchase it to learn and take apart a project.
Yes. Exactly. Call them out. Especially if it’s Blueprint. Lol. @netcop0207 If it’s a blueprint. You can do whatever you want. Especially converting it to cpp, or skookum which is Ideally the final objective.
What frustrates me the most right now is that the vendor refused to answer me so I have to analyze the blueprints on my own unless he changes his mind. I can’t exactly take those to somewhere like answerhub or forum as that actually would be violation of the rules.
Anyway, thank you all. I hope he does change his mind
If the marketplace agreement doesn’t say anything or prohibit reverse engineering (modifying) on anything that is published on the marketplace, then it should be a go. If the marketplace agreement also fulfills the creator’s agreement, if exists, then you got to adhere to the agreements.
As far as I see from https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/m…tion-agreement, in section 1b. You agree that Epic may grant to Customers a non-exclusive, worldwide, and perpetual license to download, use, copy, post, modify, promote, license, sell, publicly perform, publicly display, digitally perform, distribute, or transmit the Content for personal, promotional, and/or commercial purposes (“Digital Rights”). Both Parties expressly acknowledge that distribution of the Content to Customers via the Marketplace is not a sale of the Content but the grant of Digital Rights to Customers. Such Digital Rights shall be granted pursuant to Epic’s then-current end user license agreement for the Marketplace (“EULA”).
And section 5b (i) in regards of them not answering to you to your trouble regarding to the product; “providing Customer support and maintenance with respect to your Content and any Customer complaints about your Content”
May wanna check further and communicate more, cause maybe what he/she means by reverse-engineering is modifying it in a way that you can claim it as yours.
Well, it seems a bit unfair to do that at this point. Could be just a misunderstanding.
Currently I’m trying to explain myself to him, so if he stands his ground, then I might post the link.
Reverse engineering a product is acceptable. However if you’re looking for him to explain how the blueprint works outside of whatever documentation that is provided that is another area entirely. Generally sellers will help out when it comes to their products, but if you just don’t understand blueprints in general it isn’t necessarily up to them to teach you. But if it’s a blueprint product it should have had some sort of detailed documentation accompanying it.
You have the right to modify any purchased asset. You are forbidden thou, to improve a purchased asset and repack it as yours. You have the right to ask the vendor for additional information regarding functionality, this means how to setup parameters in order to make the asset work or which function to call for a specific effect, but ask how a blueprint works, or why something is the way it is in a C++ code, that’s another story… this is something the TOS does not cover.
Anyway, if you really need to understand how something works, you can start making changes until you figure it out or try to cut a deal with the vendor, like paying for something, but if the asset is just blueprint, all documentation is available, and you might just need to search or use the Answer Hub to obtain the necessary info.
We got a very mixed set of cultures in the community, and sometimes language barriers and cultural ways come into play, be sure to certify yourself that you were really understood before pointing out names or products.
Turns out the vendor had some issues with some of his customers misusing their rights. Allegedly, to be precise, but I do believe him.
After I convinced him that I have no such intention, he was fully cooperative, and all is well now.
