Using marketplace assets in an Adult game?

[LadyLilith-3D]

My specific question revolves around the terms and conditions of using UE marketplace assets inside an Adult (nudity, sexual activities, etc.) game. UE and Unity both state you can use their engine for such things as long as it’s legal. However, Unity specifically states their marketplace assets cannot be used in such a game that involves pornography, sexual acts, etc. I can’t find any information on what’s Unreals stance on their marketplace assets being used in a game with Adult content. Does anyone know or able to point me in the right direction? I've asked around and have come up empty-handed unless I'm just missing it.

 

[Egglock]

You can use UE4's marketplace assets in your adult game. Do keep in mind that this is not legal advice, and you should seek it from a qualify lawyer if you have any doubts. Here is what I found.

If you go to UE4 EULA under Section (B) (i) Other Restrictions on License Technology, it states the following,
Link:

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(i) UE-Only Content

For UE-Only Content, you may exercise your rights under the Engine License only if and to the extent that the UE-Only Content is utilized in a Product that requires the Engine Code to operate or is a non-interactive linear media product (e.g., broadcast or streamed video files, cartoons, movies, or images) rendered using the Engine Code. However, if you hold a license to Twinmotion under the Twinmotion EULA, you may also exercise your rights under the License to import UE-Only Content into your Twinmotion projects for the purpose of visualizing such UE-Only Content within Twinmotion. The UE-Only Content is subject to all of the terms of this Agreement that apply to Content, as well as the additional limitations described in this paragraph. All references in this paragraph to UE-Only Content include modified versions thereof made by you under the Engine License.

If you look through the rest of the section, there is no mentioning of restriction to using marketplace assets in adult games.

Scroll down a bit to Section 4. Paid Content, it doesn't mention any restriction to using the content you purchase for adult oriented games.

This is from UE marketplace distribution agreement
Link:

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Section 1. Grant of License to Your Content

b. 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”).

Again as mention above, Epic themselves is allowing you (the customer) to do what is stated. No prohibit use on adult games.

Marketplace Guidelines
Link:

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Section 2.2a and 2.2.g

2.2.a
Products must comply to the

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and the Unreal Engine

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.

2.2.g
Products distributed through the Marketplace are licensed only under the Unreal Engine

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, which is not superseded by custom licenses sellers include in their products’ distributed files.

What this means to me is that, the marketplace content falls under UE4's EULA and their Distribution Agreement. Which if you look through says nothing about the prohibited use of their content in adult games.

Section 4.2.1a

Purchasing a Marketplace product is 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. Distribution of products via the Marketplace is not a sale of the content but the granting of digital rights to the customer.

Again I'm not a lawyer. If there is even the slightest doubt to what this means, I suggest you talk to a lawyer to confirm that you can use UE4 marketplace assets in your adult game. But as far as I can understand, it looks like there are no restrictions to using them in adult oriented content.

 

[The Unexpected]

My specific question revolves around the terms and conditions of using UE marketplace assets inside an Adult (nudity, sexual activities, etc.) game. UE and Unity both state you can use their engine for such things as long as it’s legal. However, Unity specifically states their marketplace assets cannot be used in such a game that involves pornography, sexual acts, etc.

I think we should read carefully. As reflected in this part of the

You must be registered to see the links

"You agree that no modification or use of those Assets shall (a) infringe, misappropriate, or violate a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights, or other intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy; (b) violate, or encourage any conduct that would violate, any applicable law or regulation or would give rise to liability of any kind; (c) be fraudulent, false, misleading, or deceptive; (d) be defamatory, obscene, pornographic, vulgar, or offensive; (e) promote discrimination, bigotry, racism, hatred, harassment, or harm against any individual or group; (f) promote violence or actions that are threatening to any other person; or (g) promote illegal or harmful activities or substances.

We are not talking about a Porn game with assets of the Unity Store, we are talking about the direct use of those assets in a pornographic/obscene way. If i use 2 Assets characters form anywhere else, make them fuck, surrounded by a room made of Unity assets they cant say shit, the room is still just a room where the 2 characters happen to be having sex.

I think this section is there for the character assets mostly (which stills fucks me big time -.-), if you create a mostly SFW game with Unity assets, with non Unity assets doing the sex ocasionaly i think you should be safe.

The last part of that paragraph is kinda funny, considering an asset like

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exists, where you could easily create a game about growing, selling and consuming drugs with them, while kidnaping people while you are at it. Or for that matter a lot of the SYNTY assets where you could create a terrorist game...

 

[LadyLilith-3D]

I think we should read carefully. As reflected in this part of the

You must be registered to see the links

"You agree that no modification or use of those Assets shall (a) infringe, misappropriate, or violate a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights, or other intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy; (b) violate, or encourage any conduct that would violate, any applicable law or regulation or would give rise to liability of any kind; (c) be fraudulent, false, misleading, or deceptive; (d) be defamatory, obscene, pornographic, vulgar, or offensive; (e) promote discrimination, bigotry, racism, hatred, harassment, or harm against any individual or group; (f) promote violence or actions that are threatening to any other person; or (g) promote illegal or harmful activities or substances.

We are not talking about a Porn game with assets of the Unity Store, we are talking about the direct use of those assets in a pornographic/obscene way. If i use 2 Assets characters form anywhere else, make them fuck, surrounded by a room made of Unity assets they cant say shit, the room is still just a room where the 2 characters happen to be having sex.

I think this section is there for the character assets mostly (which stills fucks me big time -.-), if you create a mostly SFW game with Unity assets, with non Unity assets doing the sex ocasionaly i think you should be safe.

The last part of that paragraph is kinda funny, considering an asset like

You must be registered to see the links

exists, where you could easily create a game about growing, selling and consuming drugs with them, while kidnaping people while you are at it. Or for that matter a lot of the SYNTY assets where you could create a terrorist game...

I reached out to Unity directly months back asking for clarification on this. This is what I asked.

"I am looking at creating a game that does include adult content such as pornographic material (images and text). My concern is using assets from the assist store in the game even though they will not be modified or used in any "adult content" ways.

My main question is, are assets from the asset store still allowed to be in a game that has pornographic material if the assets themselves are not used for any of the pornographic scenes?"


And this is what I got back.

" It is not possible to use the Asset Store Assets to create adult content, this is specified in our Asset Store Terms of Service section 2.8

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"

 

[LadyLilith-3D]

You can use UE4's marketplace assets in your adult game. Do keep in mind that this is not legal advice, and you should seek it from a qualify lawyer if you have any doubts. Here is what I found.

If you go to UE4 EULA under Section (B) (i) Other Restrictions on License Technology, it states the following,
Link:

You must be registered to see the links

If you look through the rest of the section, there is no mentioning of restriction to using marketplace assets in adult games.

Scroll down a bit to Section 4. Paid Content, it doesn't mention any restriction to using the content you purchase for adult oriented games.

This is from UE marketplace distribution agreement
Link:

You must be registered to see the links

Section 1. Grant of License to Your Content


Again as mention above, Epic themselves is allowing you (the customer) to do what is stated. No prohibit use on adult games.

Marketplace Guidelines
Link:

You must be registered to see the links

Section 2.2a and 2.2.g


What this means to me is that, the marketplace content falls under UE4's EULA and their Distribution Agreement. Which if you look through says nothing about the prohibited use of their content in adult games.

Section 4.2.1a


Again I'm not a lawyer. If there is even the slightest doubt to what this means, I suggest you talk to a lawyer to confirm that you can use UE4 marketplace assets in your adult game. But as far as I can understand, it looks like there are no restrictions to using them in adult oriented content.

Thanks for the in-depth comment. This is exactly what I've been coming up with as well.

 

[The Unexpected]

I reached out to Unity directly months back asking for clarification on this. This is what I asked.

"I am looking at creating a game that does include adult content such as pornographic material (images and text). My concern is using assets from the assist store in the game even though they will not be modified or used in any "adult content" ways.

My main question is, are assets from the asset store still allowed to be in a game that has pornographic material if the assets themselves are not used for any of the pornographic scenes?"


And this is what I got back.

" It is not possible to use the Asset Store Assets to create adult content, this is specified in our Asset Store Terms of Service section 2.8

You must be registered to see the links

"

Lol, They just said the same fuking thing that is in their term of services which they way they wrote it its still open to interpretation.

Its almost like the guy responding to you said... Fuck, im just gonna do the default response and move on.

They didnt clarify the biggest issue; Can the assets of the Asset Store BE PART of a game, where at some point there is adult content. We clearly know we cant use the Asset Store Assets to create porn directly, but nothing stops us from creating ADULT CONTENT with the Unity engine itself.

I think im gonna contact them clarifying that i have read the terms of service and i want a clear awnser.

 

[LadyLilith-3D]

Lol, They just said the same fuking thing that is in their term of services which they way they wrote it its still open to interpretation.

Its almost like the guy responding to you said... Fuck, im just gonna do the default response and move on.

They didnt clarify the biggest issue; Can the assets of the Asset Store BE PART of a game, where at some point there is adult content. We clearly know we cant use the Asset Store Assets to create porn directly, but nothing stops us from creating ADULT CONTENT with the Unity engine itself.

I think im gonna contact them clarifying that i have read the terms of service and i want a clear awnser.

lmao, 100% what I thought. It's like they don't actually want to say definitively "yes, you can use them in a game that CONTAINS adult content". If you do content them as well, let me know what they say. terms@unity.com is where they specifically told me to email regarding the question.

 

[The Unexpected]

I´m waiting for their response now, this is what i wrote them.

Spoiler: Email

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Because these are legal issues we are dealing with, i made the effort to force a detailed response.

First I threw the terms of service at them first so they can´t play the lazy card on me. Second, i said what type of assets i´m using and my own interpretation of their rules(so they are forced to clarify). Also i mention that im working in a project and the need of clear information to make changes, so they see there is a real project on the works and not some random thinking to make an adult game that they can easily shutdown with the default response.

Will post again when they respond.

 

[fidless]

Well, for the most part, lots of the same assets are also available on other stores, including UE. How they'll prove that my music was brought from them and not from some musicrandomsitestore. Same for 3D environments etc.
But yeah, clarification is required.

 

[The Unexpected]

Well, for the most part, lots of the same assets are also available on other stores, including UE. How they'll prove that my music was brought from them and not from some musicrandomsitestore. Same for 3D environments etc.
But yeah, clarification is required.

Looking at the Unity forums i found a topic regarding asset license between multiple members of a team(which is it own legal beast) and same assets from different sources

There were 2 answers to note:

"As long as you've got legitimate licenses I wouldn't worry about it.

The Asset Store has never been the only place to buy stuff. I've purchased stuff elsewhere and never had an issue. "

"Assets are just files added to your project, there's no origin tracking or even actual license verification. "

Edit: "Yes and no. Unity has analytics built into the Editor, so they track when you use different features. Importing packages from the Asset Store is likely something which gets tracked. Though it is not done for asset licensing verification. "

 

[The Unexpected]

lmao, 100% what I thought. It's like they don't actually want to say definitively "yes, you can use them in a game that CONTAINS adult content". If you do content them as well, let me know what they say. terms@unity.com is where they specifically told me to email regarding the question.

How long did they take to respond back to you?

 

[LadyLilith-3D]

How long did they take to respond back to you?

I just went and checked. Looks like it was two days on mine.

 

[LadyLilith-3D]

How long did they take to respond back to you?

Still no answer from Unity?

 

[The Unexpected]

Still no answer from Unity?

Nope I heard that sometimes i takes a long time to respond. I dont know if i should send email again.

My own interpretation however, re-reading the 2.8 terms in the whole context, not just looking at the porn word in isolation, makes me believe that if assets (specially visual and popular ones in the asset store) were to be used in a way that could have legal repercusions (copyright, real life references of peoples, ideologies, illegal actions, etc), and the game were to be sold in a mainstream platform or were big enough in patreon, would make Unity take action.

They are wrote vaguely probably to help them to take action as long as it is cost effective. There are games here made with unity, where a couple of assets present in the asset store are present in the game, and nothing has happened. It has to be very "on the nose".

I will wait a bit more for a response, before resending email again.

 

[The Unexpected]

They responded!

""
(terms to bcc)

Hi Unexpected Games team,

Thank you for reaching out, and you've correctly identified a gray area here! Here is the situation: Because neither Unity nor the Asset publishers can control who buys their Assets from the Asset Store and what end users do with those Assets, the end user has to be responsible for ensuring that their game follows applicable laws, including obscenity laws. This sentence means that if the content of your game violates obscenity laws or causes some kind of legal trouble, it is Unexpected Games' responsibility and not the responsibility of the publisher whose Asset was used in the game.

Is the Asset in question one that is published by Unity? If not, then your EULA is between Unexpected Games and the publisher listed on the Asset's product page, as you probably know from your detailed reading of the EULA. If you have specific questions about how the publisher would interpret specific license terms, you should be able to reach them directly via the customer support email address listed on the Asset's product page.

""



"Is the Asset in question one that is published by Unity? If not, then your EULA is between Unexpected Games and the publisher listed on the Asset's product page, as you probably know from your detailed reading of the EULA."

For clarification, Unity would be the one responsible to apply the eula if the Asset is publisbed by Unity itsefl (normaly under "Unity Technologies" in the asset store), otherwise our eula is with the Asset publisher.