List of ripped models (stolen models) on the asset store

Probably it's just like I'd thought. Seems most accusations here are made subjectively? No real proof, mostly rumors and hearsay.
So without any advice on the legality of these "ripped" models I'd decided to purchase these beautiful vee-hicles!
Car Pack - Vehicles #1
Marvellous assets and beautifully crafted. Now to wait for that knock on the door. (Hope it's not Rowlan )

EDIT: Purchased some days ago which gave me time to evaluate . But today I see they are KAPUT.
Not there.Gone. So my review cannot be posted. But for what it's worth the asset was incredible in it's detail and it's price. Legal or not, other creators should take note of what can be done.

 

So to sum up: Your skill is to purchase an obviously pirated asset for $5 and tell other artists what "can" be done. You know, those artists with true skill who have to leave the Unity Asset Store because they can't compete with piracy prices.

 

Well said, Rowlan!

I wanted to add that pirated cheap assets benefits no one (as thrilled as they may be with buying them.) All it does is set them up for legal action against them if they release a game using them.

 

No way to know. If an asset is removed entirely (Different than being deprecated) then it's often because Unity or the Asset Seller discovered that they were illegal, but currently there is no way to determine why an asset was removed. If you read previous comments in this thread you can see lot's of people are already complaining about that.

 

To be fair, there are a LOT of posts here for anyone to try to read through, including some very long and snippy replies from people who don't know how to stay on-topic.

Makes me wish that nested threads were a common style again. (...but that's off-topic.)

 

I think the major problem most people should have with Unity is the lack of notification that the models are removed. Being a person who wants to release a commercial game by using the engine, and the lack of knowing that a model or asset is copyrighted should definitely fall back on to Unity as they the company distributing the product. Say a person downloaded a model quite some time ago and has not needed to access the package manager to import the asset as it has been in the project since the initial import. They have no way of knowing the model was removed due to this issue. Unity has made no effort to contact it's customers or even put a notice on the asset page. It is very sad that unity is avoiding responsibility to it's customers, that they have been profiting off of.

 

You won't get Unity to publicly admit that they made revenue by fencing stolen assets. It's quite understandable and a problematic position, i. e. saying nothing at all is better for Unity.

 

@WizzleOfOZ found out that this model is from the game SMITE by Titan Forge Games. So you probably want to hold back with purchasing anything from that publisher F-unit or you'll lose money since you won't get it back from the Unity Asset Store.

Unity Asset Store:

Fantasy World Craft - Aphrodite



Smite Game:

 

@Salvatore_Unity @AndrewAssetStore @UnityMaru,

That was a fast takedown ... or the publisher left himself. The Asset Store page shows this now:


Would it at least be possible for the Unity Asset Store to change this to something like "... no longer available due to violation of the Asset Store license agreement"? This way one could at least see if Unity removed it or if the publisher left the store and your customers could at least guess that the asset shouldn't be used in a commercial game.

 

The asset of Hypecom Studio was removed. The removed Asset is still on the publishers page:

https://hypecomstudio1.blogspot.com/2020/03/super-drift-cars-pack.html

The publisher must have noticed that the asset is gone from the Unity Asset Store. So this begs for a few questions:

• did the publisher remove it? And if so, why?
• did Unity remove it and if so, why?

If Unity removed it, then why is the publisher still active? It's a black and white situation. Unity Asset Store customers still buy those assets which they have no information about whether they were stolen or not. And they won't get their money back.

Here's the new asset as of this week:

Endless Traffic Vehicle Pack

 

Since unity has constantly ignored me when trying to address this situation I have made an official complaint and some inquires taking the proper steps to help resolve this for all who are affected. If people draw enough attention to this situation eventually something will have to be done.
Here is a portion of the inquires I have sent:
I have several inquires, I am a game developer and use the unity asset store regularly. Recently I have noticed how they are selling copyrighted/ stolen materials, then remove the product as they receive complaints from the owner of the material and limit the refund window to 4 weeks when said material is removed, but give up to 6 months when the material is legit. Once a complaint has been made is it not true that Unity now becomes knowledgeable of the product being stolen and/or copyrighted. The problem lies in that when a customer reports this to them, they request the customer to contact and have the owner of the copyrighted material file a DMCA complaint . Is Unity able to profit off of stolen materials until a complaint is made by the official owner of the stolen materials? Also are they allowed to refuse a refund to their customers after an asset has been removed due to copyright infringement? Any time I have tried to address this with unity, it seems like they are keeping this situation under wraps and refuse to notify customers that have purchased the products setting them up for failure. If the person is to unknowingly release a game with these stolen/copyrighted materials the developer can now receive a DMCA Complaint for a product they have purchased from Unity's website causing defamation to the person and/or company that released the game plus a chance of other legal troubles because of this.

 

Neat. With whom? Where?

 

I think "Rowlan" deserves a vote of thanks for his work on this subject. A bit of a thankless job but extremely enlightening. Quite amazing how his detective work has resulted in good outcomes for (mostly) all of us. Thanks!

 

Copyright.gov, dmca.com, and bbb.org(Better Business Bureau). I am looking for other places to file complaints. I even went on Unity Techs live stream on twitter and brought the issue up in front of over a hundred people watching, the stream has over 1.5k on viewers so maybe somebody will notice.

 

The BBB is only a valid place to go to if they are accredited with the BBB, which I don't think they are.

The BBB isn't a branch of the government or otherwise have any policing authority. They are a private group that basically sell their "seal of approval" to other companies, so consumers can look for companies accredited by them, and know thus affirm them to be a "good company." If a company does not adhere to the BBB's standards, the BBB would revoke their seal from that company. But if a company simply decides not to be accredited by the BBB, then they have no authority over them.

The concept of getting accredited by the BBB is a very good one, (it's similar to the idea I mentioned earlier to help address the problem of stolen assets in the store,) and many consumers do look for that, and so many companies take it seriously. But they are in no way a place you can just take *any* complaint to.

Sidenote bonus info: I've spoken with people who work for companies dealing with the BBB, and if you ever take an issue to the BBB, you really want to present them a full list of everything you have done, eg, I tried calling this public number and sent them an email and so on. Don't go to them unless you have exhausted multiple avenues of contact and are not getting a response. But going to the BBB does get you results; they have special contact methods to their associated companies so they can get straight to people who can do something about an issue, and when the BBB gets involved you get results FAST. But they aren't going to go through that effort unless you've gone through yours.
(end sidenote)

I'm not really sure what copyright.gov is going to do here, but I didn't think about dmca.com. Didn't know it was a thing, actually.

 

Thank you, but most of it isn't me. Others contact me with that info, they don't want their names public.

 

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/animations/snowboard-animations-130039

Animations are from tony hawks pro skater 5:

the „author „ got some more packs that are ripped animations from THPS. Messaged the assetstore team and they replied with „so did you made the original animations?“… fu…

 

I don't know; animations are going to be a lot harder to prove they were stolen, especially for something like that. If you made brand-new animations for skating and snowboarding, they'd look pretty much spot-on with these.
Unless you directly compared the files, I don't see how you can prove that they didn't just reference the same material.

 

Even the file names are the same. I am betting my first born that even the bone names and hierarchy are the same

 

What exactly are you comparing? Your link points to a snowboard asset. Where are the names you mention?

However, I compared your video with this:

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/animations/toon-skaters-world-134128

Just checking a few of the distinctive animations, they have too much of a similarity, e. g.

Tony Hawk at 11:53 vs Asset Store 02:01
Tony Hawk at 11:59 vs Asset Store 02:19
Tony Hawk at 10:26 vs Asset Store 01:26
Tony Hawk at 12:01 vs Asset Store 02:19

Especially the shaking is pretty much the same. It would also explain why the Asset Store version has the hand inside the skateboard:


I wanted to purchase the skiing and snowboard assets of the publisher, but I guess I'll hold back until the publisher clarifies the situation.

 

under "package content" in the store page you can see how the animations are called. ripping unreal engine assets is super simple, so i just did it myself and these are the names (left theirs, right tony hawk). But yeah, also in the video you can see that timing, easing, animation style, its all the same

 

Good gods... and all this S*** is just the 3D content!

I suppose with all the stuff shown here, the safe bet is that all Asset Stores shouldn't be considered safe by default, but do you guys know if this is also happening with audio assets (especially SFXs)?

 

One might guess so. But audio is way easier to identify. youtube does that for everyone. I recently got an email about a copyright claim by Universal Music Italia for one of my Unity gameplay videos. It's because of the ambient sound (wind, birds etc) of an asset I'm using. It's a false positive of course, or hopefully, but basically if it weren't then a lot of my videos in my channel would be affected. I'd have to take them all down. I had to submit a dispute and what not and it's super annoying. But still, this is what could happen. A takedown of a lot of my videos because a Unity Asset Store publisher might have taken a free sound from some free sounds website that someone illegally uploaded there and said it's theirs.

 

It's possible, but super hard to track down.
So much from the world of sound effects comes from a lot of the same original samples, especially when you are dealing with small studios and amateurs (which accounts for most of the content sellers). Most of these folks are using the same libraries to get samples to mix and use. How do we know who is using samples they legally have a right to use, and who happens to steal that sample form another work which already paid for its use?
I'm sure someone who is super-lazy and just uploads content ripped from a game could get caught, but anyone who does at least a little mixing? Not so much.

But the good news is: that also makes it hard to pin something on a game you make if you use that asset. Who is going to really notice that a 0.6 second sound of digging is exactly the same as one in another game, and not just think you both got it from the same library?

 

This is how unity responds when called out on live stream. Pretty sad excuse. Just thought I would share for anybody else being screwed over by this ordeal.

 

Regarding those Unlock game models (which are now finally gone):

Many of them were ripped from Forza Motorsport with 100% certainty. I reported this to Asset Store support 3 years ago and their staff response was along lines:

"Even if they are ripped / pirated, we can't do anything about it unless the original IP owner asks for a takedown".

This basically meant that me reporting them in "customer" role meant nothing for Unity. And it clearly didn't matter since they kept selling those assets for 3 years after my report.

Bottom line here is: you can't trust any art assets to be legit on stores like this - unless you really know the original author and trust it - you can't trust asset store QA or support on this. I don't know if their policies have change since but I'd be super careful.

 

Dude, grow up.
You come at them with the snobbiest offensive tone like you're some shock-value journalist, and then come here to complain when when you get banned.

We can all see that your tone isn't about an honest discussion; it's one of slander. You've backpeddled this whole issue because now you've made everyone here who is upset about this look like we're trying to attack Unity.

"stolen assets they sell and profit off of" "screwing over their customers" Not to mention how they are in the middle of a very significant merger and you try to twist that as them "having lots of money" which you also imply they have because of stolen assets. All of this brought up under a false guise of "suggesting a stream."

Stop treating Unity like your enemy. Talk to them like a business that you want to do business with.

 

Is Unity acting like a business that wants to do business with us?

 

I'm sorry you're offended that I am standing up for people whose voice Unity refuses to hear. The responsibility is completely Unity's when they refuse to acknowledge the situation and always provide the same excuse of escalating to the "concerned people" and never hearing from them on the matter again. Let's not forget removing the assets with no notification and only allowing a refund up to 4 weeks of a stolen/copyrighted assets. The four week clause show's they are well aware of the situation and trying to hide it, any other asset has up to six months, so why not the same treatment with these assets? The limit of 4 weeks does indeed screw over their customers that have actual jobs and aren't able to sit on unity daily or even weekly for that matter. Your misinterpretation of me complaining is rather saddening, I'm bringing it to people's attention how Unity reacts to the situation. If they wanted actual business they would handle this properly.
I guess it's rather shocking when you cut right to the point with a hard truth. It's a completely logical suggestion for a stream, showing that the users are being heard on a very serious subject that is always brushed under the rug. Granted we the users of the asset store are not big companies able to line their pockets, but as a whole we are a big part of Unity. It is not only hurting the users but also developers of quality assets. In regards to the purchase, they purchased Weta for $1.625 billion, I guess that isn't a large amount of money to you. Collectively I'm sure the totals of the profits they have made off of the assets is much smaller, so it shouldn't be a problem to refund customers and re-establish trust in the asset store.

 

Following up on the post about the stolen skating from Tony Hawks by the *REDACTED* publisher: There's a new Bike Racing asset which looks tempting. I wanted to get it, yet I'm still sceptic about that publisher. So I investigated more. When you click on the youtube link in the video of the Asset Store description you can see the comments. One of them being:


So the publisher *REDACTED* uses a youtube video with an owner name "Top free games" and an email address of fbxdownloads ... well, if that's not suspicious, what is?

So I checked some more and searched for fbxdownloads. Well, it turns out, that there's a publisher named that way on the Unity Asset Store called FbxDownloads with that email address.


The company address leads to a working website. With an unsecure certificate. And contact information that doesn't work.


When you try to contact them you get a DeliveryStatus Notification Failure reply for info@fbxdownloads.in. But you also get one for info@fxbdownloads.in as seen above next to "Mail Us". Which serious website owner / company makes such kind of typo on their website with fxb... and fbx...?

So to sum up: *REDACTED* and fbxdownloads are linked.

I posted that on discord. Didn't take long until someone showed up and took a look at the publisher. WizzleOfOz found out that the Scuba Diving Animations of FbxDownloads are the same as on a gumroad account where you can get those animations for free. At first I thought the publisher is selling free animations, that happens. However it's a gumroad account that is owned by TrueBones which - what I didn't know and was told later - is the pestilence of the gaming industry, known for piracy. So either that is the source for the animations or both have the same source. Which is more likely. It turns out that those were already on sketchfab and there was an infringement alert and the animations seem to come from a game called Maneater.

Initially I was confused about the hands when I compared the animations. In the demo video on the asset store the hands are twisted compared to the youtube video of TrueBones. However, then someone showed me a comparison of the package files vs the animation files. These are the files on the Asset Store vs their counterparts on the gumroad account. Looks like the animations are just renamed, otherwise they add up nothing more, nothing less except for the shark animation:



Given the huge amount of assets that *REDACTED* and fbxdownloads have on the Unity Asset Store - and rather pricey ones - I hope the Asset Store team starts investigating and protect their customers. Because that's a lot of money the Unity Asset Store customers will lose.

@Salvatore_Unity
@AndrewAssetStore

Tagging you guys because this seems important for you. I guess you should contact the publishers and demand an explanation. Best via their website, not via the gmail address.

 

White knight detected.

Sorry man but ppl have all the right to be damn mad at Unity. Some ppl livelyhood is at stake, ppl invested money into their games just to then be surprised that the asset they bought, the money they spent and the trust they've put in Unity Asset Store just went to fck.

How would You feel, months and years even into development, time invested, money invested, just to find out u need to scrap most of the stuff because You would uknownigly break the copyright.

I haven't seen yet the official statement from Unity Asset Store about this issue, its like screaming to the void.

I really hope they will act on it and find a good way to battle this, because they should really start to care more about their customers.

Thats why I only use asset store art for prototypes and will invest into custom art whenever I feel the game has potential, I cba handling crap like the above.

 

In addition to the above, WizzleOfOz mentioned that the lion of Toon Lion Animations of the FbxDownloads publisher looks like it's from Kingdom Hearts. This one, that's the video from the Asset Store description:

I took only a quick look because I don't want to waste any more time with this publisher. Well, draw your own conclusion, quick youtube search, the first result I found:



Pretty much looks like Scar from The Lion King.

 

Why would they care? Check out the assets of *REDACTED*, the quantity alone is already very suspicious. So many assets, expensive ones. Lots of money:

 

Just adding those of the other account for sake of completeness, which doesn't mean those 2 would be the only accounts here on the Unity Asset Store:

 

no offense, then why do business with them??? I see people here every day, saying, person A, stole person B, art, because it " LOOKS" like something, that is not stealing..

Unity as a BUSINESS, is 100% correct./... they can't do ANYTHING, unless the IP, person who made it, comes forward with proof, I have said this to people in this post many times, I can't stand first hand, someone stealing my work and they have.... Yes AAA included ( they have big lawyers, even with proof, hard to fight..

Now I think assets if they are RIPPED from a game should be TAKEN down, 100%.. but, if they are a COPY of something or a car asset, that is NOT illegal ... I don't care how many times people scream about it, its not.. every artist would of been sued by now.. including 99% of the art assets on the store and other stores..

So, people NEED to understand the difference and the laws.. of each country and what Unity can and cant do. Best way is to ask Unity, if they don't do anything, its because its the law... They have there own team that handles this, just like every single professional artist does ( or should). I had one for years...

Now I see people here, not saying names, who take assets and put them together and puts them on you tube, and never credits them...... and has the nerve to say thanks when people comment on the nice art....

.. That is ILLEGAL as hell and bad form....

... they are lucky these artist aren't all over them for not crediting them.... if you use someone ART/Assets you NEED to credit them.

PS, I find it funny when people tell that person the scene looks good and its NOT there art....at all... Its the asset store developers, but this is another topic.. Some people here need to learn the difference, between, ripped art from a game and a "COPY" of something... from real life or another game. Animations, same thing.... People copy others work, animations, art, game play all the time, that is not illegal..

Bottom line, if you think its ripped or stolen art, contact the IP, and let them handle it.... if they care about it, they will... I used to share my work back in the day and people who steal it and COPY it..... I get S*** for refusing to share my work today.... and this is one reason why, to many thieves out there, that want to steal your hard work and IDEAS.... ( alot of people learn there lesson .

 

To the extend that my current career allows me, I avoid doing business with them, I do not trust them. I hope to improve this in the future since I am not too happy with the current situation.

That is not what they are saying, what they are showing is the literal exact meshes from published games being sold on the Asset Store.

If by correct, you mean legal, sure, I guess, mostly. (although I'm not sure how "legal" it is that they don't offer refunds in the EU when they are required to do so by the EU, this feels like it's a lawsuit away from changing if someone bothers to do it).

Here is where we disagree. Other stores that sell copyrighted materials actually offer indemnification to you. Meaning if you buy something, and then you get in trouble because the asset was stolen or whatever, the store covers your legal expenses / damages (up to a point, you can actually pay extra if you want more coverage). Unity's Asset Store indemnification places the onus on everyone else for damages.

SURELY, there is room for improvement here?

No, not really, if people ask to take some asset down and they don't, it's because they don't want to. I'm pretty sure they can take things down for arbitrary reasons.

AFAIK the Asset Store EULA does not require attribution. And even if it did (please show me where it says that), it still wouldn't be illegal, it would just be breaking the Asset Store's EULA.

Not if you acquired it with a license that doesn't explicitly require credit / attribution.

 

ROFL,

Looks don't mean a damn thing, the LION KING does own or can prevent anyone .from
making LIONS, or anything like it...you clearly have never worked or understand how art, laws work....

OMG, I made a gun, that means NO ONE can.... OMG I made a sword, that must "LOOK" like something in WOW.. so I can't make it.... WOW, just WOW... This person, clearly does not understand how this works now if it was "RIPPED" 100% remove it..

pirated , stolen sure, I would agree with you..... but someone using for inspiring, or that TRIES to copy something... is allowed in any game...other wise, no one would have a game of any kind today..... your generation would be in trouble and not be able to make anything, because us older developers would OWN everything.... no more FPS, or TPS, RPG, MMo and much more...... art in these kind of games.....would not be allowed.... if that was the case...

Pixel art for sure would NEVER be allowed any kind of it any type of weapon, animal or other wise..... if that was the case... "looking" like something means NOTHING..


Now if you have proof, it was ripped, by all means, get it taken down, but contact the IP... they will come forward. with the proof and I would be agreeing with that 100%

but if the developer made something that is a "look a like" then you are in the wrong.... and that should be taken down.( the post).. as its not illegal or fair to any artist who may make something that may "look" like something from another game or movie...


PS: If you have not contacted the IP, with proof, I don't think users should be able to tarnish a possible good artist name... unless there is proof.... Be sure to contact the IP's of all of these things your claiming to be stolen art.

( everyone has the right to defend them selves.) to many people are fast to say something is illegal today, when its not. so I bet any money that is why its still UP on the store still...

as far as pirates, and people ripping yes they need to burn for what they done.... they should be removed.. ( no one should condone that either... .but its all about fairness, I seen good artist ruined in the industry for false, claims before, he lost everything, its not right to do that to anyone, with out 100% proof!!!

 

That is not the argument here, the argument is that this looks like the exact mesh and exact texture from kingdom hearts, in which case, yes it is copyright infringement.

Now is it actually the same mesh and texture? I don't know.

But I do not understand why you keep misunderstanding and misrepresenting what other people are saying in this thread.

 

Don't try to understand him, it's futile. Moreover he's not understanding the concept of someone stealing someone's work and selling it on a trusted marketplace vs the impact of someone purchasing something on a trusted marketplace and ending up having used stolen work in a commercial game.

Take this as an example where he didn't accept the obvious:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/wha...-unity-asset-store.82355/page-21#post-5924015

In the meantime people kept on buying assets from the Unlock publisher. Now the publisher got banned for piracy. People won't get their money back and have to replace their models in their games. More time and effort involved on a usually tight time frame.

And speaking of the obvious, take again *REDACTED*. You can already deduct from the reviews what's up:

Might sound legit. But looking again at the publisher page:

Still leads to *REDACTED*. Which as of now at the end of the year 2021 shows this:

So why would they use a gmail address? I mean, even the contact itself is broken:*REDACTED* vs *REDACTED*, so they aren't even capable of fixing their own contact?

Something is obviously way off.

 

I picked up a new asset, and not even a month later it was removed from the store along with everything else from this publisher, named Wrinit.
I don't see them mentioned here, does anyone know for certain if these were stolen? Or if perhaps there was some other reason why the developer in question has vacated the store?

It looks like they have an external site that is still up, even if all their content on Unity's store is gone: https://wrinitstore.wixsite.com/my-site

Personally I don't recognize their models as being from anything. And with there being no word from Unity about WHY any of these were taken down, well... It would be nice if anyone knew something for certain.

EDIT: Also it seems I was automatically refunded my money, so at least there's that.

 

That 'Lion' in the screenshot is indeed looks disneys' mufasa, the same as the bottom one, except some vertex pulled down and flattened feet just to avoid the 'stolen looks'. Even if you can get away from stolen model infringement, you are still in the risk of copyright infringement.

It will be harder to proof hard surfaced model is stolen/ripped or not, especially if it's a common design like guns, cars, furnitures, you can't just based on the look, but you'll have to go deeper into the wireframe mesh, uv layout, texture details, file naming etc, and that's what those guy have already done, they've actually compared the uv layout and the file naming and they are a match.

1st, inspired != ripping, it's different to make a model inspired by World of Warcraft with actually ripping a World of Warcraft character. Also character designs can be copyrighted, and if you actually make a 3d model out of a WoW character design, it can also infringe the copyright.

You are free to make your own version of dwarf, or elf, or lion, but if you are 'making' WoW's Ironforge 'Dwarves', or Kaldorei Night 'Elves', Mufasa 'lion', then you are in the risk of copyright infringement.

I think, more like he want to mislead others

 

That publisher seems to have used the website of an existing company as reference on the Unity Asset Store, but used a non-related email address to present themselves as reliable publisher here. So chances are those models are stolen as well.

Same as *REDACTED* and fbxdownloads that I mentioned above. Since they are still live and the Unity Asset Store team does nothing about it, even after complaining to the Unity Support and writing to Unity Legal, I did what Unity failed to do, took the 1 minute and just sent this mail:

 

I sent mail via the provided website. That account still exists on Sketchfab. This is the reply:

These are not our models. It seems like someone has used our name and logo to create this account and posted these models. I am going to report this to Sketchfab and get it removed quickly.

 

I have come across this publisher
https://assetstore.unity.com/publishers/57562?aid=1101lMAW&utm_source=aff
who’s ripping 3d models from games like (blade and souls) and selling them be aware of him. Refer below information
This is gameplay of the queen spider and spider which he’s selling.⬇️

 

Thanks for the info. I bought some of the assets from this guy, the folder structure are exacally the same as 3D voxel. I bet they are the same people, they just register a new account and continue selling ripped models.

 

Just in case anyone is wondering, it's been almost a month: I didn't get a reply. And there's no statement in this forum thread either, obviously. I created another support ticket with Unity and the reply was that Unity is still investigating, but can't share any information. So apparently since it's been last year since this started, nothing will happen.

 

From the new release discounts this morning I noticed that Low Poly Fantasy Pack | 3D Characters | Unity Asset Store is a re-uploaded copy of Polygonal Fantasy Pack | Characters | Unity Asset Store. Down to the same screenshots but with the text overlay removed.

 

Wow, the nerve of this guy. Hopefully it gets taken down quick.

 

Wow, this is stupid. How could Unity let this happen. And they charge 30% for what.

 

It looks like it's been taken down along with the 'publisher' page, so that's good news at least. I haven't gotten a reply to my report request, but I did let the original asset author know so I'm not sure which caused them to take action.