Why some creators are livid over the rise of fraudulent behavior in Fortnite and Roblox

Copyright claims

A common complaint among experienced Fortnite Creative developers is the frequency of false copyright claims made by users on the platform. On user-generated content (UGC) platforms such as Fortnite and Roblox, it is a common practice for in-game creators to mimic the most popular and successful experiences when building their games, resulting in a glut of virtual worlds that all have similar names, game mechanics and even thumbnail images. The result is that once any game gets popular, it will spark the creation of dozens of cheaply put-together knock-offs — some entirely devoid of actual content — intended to siphon traffic from the original.

“It’s not the same kind of name scraping that you would see in the app store for the past decade,” said the lawyer Ryan Morrison, whose firm Morrison Cooper LLP has helped defend numerous UGC creators against copyright claims over the past year. “They quickly build these games out, and they mimic what’s popular — everything from name to mechanics to assets. And then, if they’re part of a more popular Discord community or have the right influencers behind it, suddenly those will skyrocket up.”

Emulating another creator’s work is not inherently against Epic Games’ rules — or in violation of any federal copyright laws. After all, this kind of behavior is widespread on more established creator platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. On Fortnite, however, some copycats have taken their mimicry a step further by filing bogus Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) claims against their rivals, with the goal of taking their competitors’ experiences down and thus diverting more traffic to their own.

Fortnite’s copyright takedown system is fully complaint with the DMCA. When someone submits a report, the claim is reviewed by a combination of human moderators and automated tools to determine whether it is valid. Creators who are subject to copyright claims are informed of the alleged infringement and given instructions on how to file a valid legal counter-notice. If they do, the original reporter is given 10 days to file a legal suit, with the maps getting automatically reinstated if no suit is filed.

But the first few days after publication are crucial for determining the long-term success of Fortnite Creative maps. Sitting in limbo for up to 10 days, even if the copyright claim ultimately turns out to be false, can severely damage a game’s momentum. Fortnite’s meticulous and DMCA-compliant copyright claim process reflects Epic Games’ commitment to curbing IP infringement on the platform — but creators feel the system doesn’t sufficiently protect them when bad actors abuse this line of attack.

In January, for example, the prominent Fortnite Creative studio JOGO published an original game titled “Super Red vs. Blue.” Shortly after the game became one of Fortnite’s top 10 most popular maps, it was taken down for roughly 24 hours due to what JOGO staff believes was a false DMCA claim by a competitor. 

“A lot of these top maps were doing that as a way to kill momentum for maps, because they’d be stuck for at least 10 days or longer in a DMCA claim, and that would basically remove them from [Fortnite’s] Discover [page] completely,” said Fortnite influencer and JOGO founder Chad “Mustard Plays” Mustard. “Luckily, we have good lawyers, and we were able to counter-claim. We got back up fairly quickly, and it didn’t kill our momentum.”

Opaque moderation practices

In addition to false DMCA claims, some Fortnite Creative developers have also been frustrated with what they view as a lack of transparency around the platform’s moderation policies, particularly with regard to inappropriate content. Given Fortnite is popular among underaged users, Epic Games is understandably cautious about the types of content it does and does not allow, but creators believe the company needs to communicate the reasons for content takedowns more clearly in order to allow them to make quick fixes.

In May, the Fortnite Creative studio Creators Corp developed a dodgeball map in partnership with the influencer collective Dude Perfect and the action camera brand GoPro. One month after the experience went live, Epic Games moderators took it down, with the moderation process informing Creators Corp that the reason for the takedown was “suggestive content.” 

Following the takedown, Creators Corp pushed its contacts at Epic to tell them the specific reason for the takedown — a virtual panda bear with semi-realistic buttocks — but wasn’t able to find out until meeting with an Epic representative at the company’s Unreal Fest conference in early October.

“We don’t really have clarity on any piece of that process — how it works, how it happens, or why things get flagged,” said Creators Corp strategy lead Jake Laumann. “We’re lucky, because we have that line [with Epic Games] and can get some information and make some inferences. But I feel for the 99 percent of other creators that don’t have access to any of that.”

The platforms’ response

Both Fortnite and Roblox are hyper-aware of creators’ qualms over copyright claims and moderation, and they are taking steps to rectify these perceived issues. Both platforms, for example, do not automate their copyright claim processes, with humans reviewing every potential takedown report prior to processing.

Earlier this year, Roblox introduced a Rights Manager tool intended to both help rights holders enforce their rights on the platform and limit fraudulent reports by requiring ID verification to submit reports. The company has also announced that it will be beta testing a claims and disputes management tool for creators in late 2024.

As for Fortnite publisher Epic Games, the company has taken numerous actions to rectify its copyright claim issues following JOGO’s troubles in January, announcing in March that its moderators would no longer recognize takedown requests on the basis of a game’s genre, thus stemming some mass reporting attempts. In April, the company adjusted its rules to prevent games from tricking users into playing them in exchange for the promise of nonexistent free items, a previously common scam. In September, Epic introduced a new system for creators to report duplicative promotional content.

“We are constantly evolving our reporting and moderation processes to ensure we are enforcing our policies effectively, communicating them clearly to creators and preventing people from taking advantage of our systems,” said an Epic Games spokesperson. “Creators can always appeal a moderator’s decision and we’ll re-review the island. If we made a mistake we’ll fix it as soon as possible.”

As Epic has responded to creators’ complaints, the company has also stepped up its efforts to communicate with its users about these changes, as Creators Corp discovered during its meeting with Epic at Unreal Fest last month.

“The only time we had an opportunity to speak up was at a session at Unreal Fest; they’d just launched a new division that is really dedicated to moderation, and so those people were on stage during that session,” said Creators Corp founder Margot Rodde. “And literally the minute they stopped talking, there was a huge line — everybody got up to ask questions and tell them that this is not working.”

Indeed, in spite of these updates, Fortnite Creative developers believe the platform still needs to do more to protect its creators. For both the platform’s false DMCA claims and its opaque moderation practices, the crux of the issue is that creators feel they are unable to respond to moderation quickly, threatening the momentum of new experiences during their crucial early days. 

Even if creators are able to get their maps back up relatively quickly, they believe that there isn’t a system in place to compensate them for the lost traffic and engagement that can result from false or unexplained takedowns. As a result, fraudulent behaviors such as false copyright claims continue to be a useful tactic that bad actors can use to hurt both their competitors and the brands that work with them.

“They should have an automatic way of putting you through the discoverer again; there should be a discoverer that’s specifically designed for this, and it’s not the case,” Rodde said. “And no one cares: ‘Go on and just make your next map, and hope for the best.’”