Copyright issues - who is responsible?

If I buy something on the asset store that, unknown to me, includes someone else's copyrighted material illegally or infringes licenses somehow, and then I sell a game using that asset, am I legally responsible for that? Can I be sued by the original copyright holder for infringing their copyright, even though I bought the product and the license says I'm allowed to use it? Or are they only allowed to sue the person who sold the asset to me? Or can they sue Unity somehow since Unity backs the products on the asset store with their own license and guarantee?

I'm just worried about some of the lax standards in some assets where they include other people's models or textures that they don't necessarily own, even if those models are "free" from the original copyright holder. Most "free" models also include a license saying you can't resell them for profit, so including them in an asset package you're selling for profit seems questionable.

I mostly want to make sure I'm legally covered if I buy something, or if I need to investigate everything I buy on my own to make sure it doesn't infringe someone else's copyright. Can we get our money back if we find out that something we bought does infringe copyright or isn't compatible with the license that it's distributed with?

 

I believe the term is "ignorance is no excuse". If you're in violation of copyright, whether or not you know, you are still in violation. You can be sued, though likely I would imagine you would get a "cease and disist" first.

Your only recourse would be to sue the person that sold you the bogus assets.

 

Free models included in packages usually come with the original license.

People aren't selling the model, they are selling a product and have included a model to showcase function, they in no way provide you with a license to use the model, nor are they making profit from the model.

In any case whenever I have seen a product in the asset store using free models it has always stated so or it is one of the Unity models.

Yes, if you use something copyrighted in your game and you don't have the rights to disrtibute you can be sued. If you have bought it by someone else, you will have to have proof of purchase and basically explain that you bought said asset and that it was the seller that did the copyright infringement. In any case you will be asked to either remove or buy said asset.

There is no free pass if you haven't ensured your assets source, but you aren't going to burn in fire either (given proof of course).
Basically yes, you are responsible for what you put in your game.

Disclaimer: Post not to be used as legal advice, I am not a lawyer.

 

If people are doing that, it's in violation of the Unity license. The Asset Store is pretty specific that if you sell an asset on the asset store, you must own all the rights to redistribute it, and the person buying the asset has all rights to do whatever they want with everything in the asset package. You are specifically prohibited from including any other content under a different license within a sold asset. Every sold asset has to abide by the Unity license. Only free asset packages are exempt from this; they are allowed to include their own license. But no, if you're including some kind of open source or CC item in your package and selling it, that's against the Asset Store agreement and in violation of the license.

I think a lot of people aren't quite aware of that, and that's what worries me. Hopefully Unity allows refunds if you accidentally buy something and then find out there's a text file inside of it saying you're not allowed to use it. :|

That's kind of what I figured, but I was wondering if maybe Unity has some kind of legal team that deals with these sort of issues since they own the Asset Store and the license that everything on the store is sold under. One of the main things I like about the asset store is that you're forced to use Unity's asset store license if you sell on there, so the buyer knows he can buy your asset and use it in his game without any sneaky licensing loopholes or threat of accidentally including a "viral" open source asset... if people are trying to sell things but have a hidden second license on parts of their package, then that takes away some of the usefulness of the asset store.

 

Another disclaimer that I am neither a lawyer nor do I work for Unity - I am just an Asset Store content publisher.

From my experience, you are allowed to have other licenses in your assets, but they must be approved by Unity and the license file must be viewable in the store itself. It should show up with a yellow warning icon. This isn't limited to only free assets.

Sometimes reviewers will miss this - it's important for publishers to let them know that there is another license present within the package.

Now, as far as not making profit from the model as koyima said above: That's debatable (and very unlikely), because the example model could definitely help with sales, which they are making profit from. Some products do have a license that allows you to use it in other packages, but not in games or final end-user products. It's important that the person buying an asset can see that license before they make a purchase.

That said, keep a proof of purchase for any Asset Store product you buy. The community is actually quite good at picking out copyright violations well before it becomes an issue, and Unity has refunded people in the past who inadvertently purchased copyrighted content after taking it down from the store.

Also, Unity will remove violations of copyright, and may pursue an Asset Store publisher legally depending on any damages caused by that violation. After all, they lose money from refunding customers as well.

 

We are talking about adding free models, textures, animations here, not something that somebody would have to pay for and is just added for convenience to show off a setup. Usually Unity provided models, mixamo animations or something like that.

You can use anything from the Unity demos and some characters/animations are provided by mixamo, some packs use these same assets to setup a demo. That's the whole idea. As I said I would be hard-pressed to actually find an asset that falls into your scenario.

When in doubt simply ask, but I think you are procrastinating, get moving on your game.

 

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. It's in both the Provider Agreement you have to agree to when submitting an asset: http://unity3d.com/unity/asset-store/docs/provider-distribution-agreement.html
"6.6 All Assets that Customers purchase (as opposed to free Assets, cf. Section 6.7 below) from the Unity Asset Store shall be subject to Unity's standard EULA, Appendix 1."

and the Submission Guidelines: unity3d.com/unity/asset-store/docs/submission-guidelines.html
"6.2 Licensing your Content

For consistency sake, all Asset Store offerings are covered by a license we have created. Please have a look at the End User License Agreement to be sure you are comfortable with it. If you are offering your content for free, you have the further option of selecting one of three free-licenses, which override the basics of our commercial license. Please do not include your own license terms in your offering."

 

Do you actually have a case in hand?

 

I don't want to accuse anyone without knowing for sure; I was mostly just curious because I did notice that a lot of sold asset packages include stuff from other people's free asset packages, especially as parts of their demo scene, without mentioning that it's not their own creation, even though it seems to be against the license terms. I will have to go through the assets I've purchased when I get home and see if I can track down where the original art and sound came from. I was hoping to not have to do that because of some magical legal protection but it sounds like I will need to do it.

 

I am having the same issue with an asset called "Classic Furniture Pack". The developer used the Apple logo as well as icons from applications found on the tablet that is used in the texture files. This also goes for the same for the laptop.

Do I have to import everything from the package if the asset was copyrighted as a whole? I'd like to release my video game soon!

Link to the asset: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/54611