Protect your Creators from ripper websites!
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Nacho_
There are Websites like ripper store where everyone can download every avatar/world/animation that was uploaded to vrchat! Do something against it! I am a Content Creator and i know that there are tons of ripper and package sharer out there. But this website and other websites shares/leaks even unitypackages! Please do something or Content Creators will go to CVR, NEOS or idk.
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peq42
and this is why nearly nobody puts any fucking money in this game. Why would anyone? Pay to have their avatars, worlds, HUNDREDS OF HOURS of work, etc stolen?
Scout - VRChat Head of Quality Assurance
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peq42
Scout - VRChat Head of Quality Assurance: They are doing a fucking avatar hunt. Are u guys going to just fucking watch?
TrixxedHeart
Realistically there's no real way to completely stop rippers.
If you wanted to 100% stop rippers you would need to make VRChat an entirely cloud based application that streams the game to you (Imagine the now dead Google Stadia), which trust me, nobody wants.
Even really trying to "encrypt" avatar files wouldn't be full proof either, as those encryptions can still be broken into, and it would still be possible to rip using other methods.
Generally it would end up being a never ending game of cat and mouse of constantly trying to change the encryption and wasting development time that could be spent on other features.
Trust me, as an avatar creator myself it can suck, but it shouldn't be something you beat yourself up over.
Generally if you want to avoid avatar piracy I highly recommend to make the avatars you provide accessible and easy to get, especially don't add any "DRM" nonsense, that kind of stuff is not only a grey area in TOS, but would easily be removed by piraters and only inconvenience buyers.
I could go into it a bit more but I'm short on time and need to get some stuff done.
Sonriah
The easy anticheat update literally blocks us from blacklisting our avatars, as the blacklist uses an api to ping vrchat so not only is vrc not doing anything to prevent this, they are proactively keeping it running. this isnt the intent of easy anticheat, but that doesnt change the reality of its repercusions. Please vrc do something about this!
Kilerbomb
This kind of thing has been a problem for a long time, with absolutely no official statement on it from the team as far as I am aware. Completely removing the ability to content rip would likely be impossible but surely some methods could be employed to at least attempt to make it more difficult.
At bare minimum I would like to see the team actually acknowledge that this is a major problem, and look into methods of stopping or otherwise impeding it. Especially with the creator economy coming soonish, I feel this really needs addressing.
Jasper Raine
As bad as this is, I would also like to point out that some of these sites could also be phishing sites, so I wouldn't try going through the site to get your stuff taken down. I've even found my own stuff on there. I don't understand people that make these sites.
LunaDelrey
Kinda wonder how "complete" those world rips are, my world ("know your friends in space") has a LOT of custom scripts.
Which is how I curb copying since most rippers can't rip the scripts as well...
But I don't have site access and I don't really feel like signing up to find out...
That all said, this stuff is still highly illegal, the site mentioned before is basically commiting copyright infringement and you could sue them if you made the avatar yourself.
Kaugumme
LunaDelrey: not want to get into detail but the vrcw files (currently not available to dl yet on the site in question) wouldnt differ from those the api currently still spits out, with the - in theory - (at least partial, splitted) monobehaviours included.
I downloaded a vrca file from their site of one of my private avatar ids and it didnt differ from the unitypackage from the api. note that they only offer the latest windows package, so one wouldnt have to worry about their android (where ripping and modding arent problems just yet) avatars and prob worlds at this point (although im sure they just store everything they can, android or windows, and every version, just like this emvrc shit does).
But i think on emvrc you could in theory request that your data would get deleted, but couldnt confirm this yet, didnt get a mail reply.
Same goes for https://en.vrcw.net, glad they only store the metadata here.
Another problem with the said site is they even make money distributing our creations (you have to buy "privatate" packages (set to private at the crawl time)).
xxx_red_xxx
LunaDelrey: i just googled vrchat ripper store... WHY IS THIS A THING AND WHY ISNT IT BEEN TAKEN DOWN YET???
Kilerbomb
LunaDelrey: Speaking as someone who recently had an avatar stolen and reuploaded, I can tell you they get a fully working package with all scripts intact. This includes AV3 animators that are properly setup. Only thing they don't get are shaders. So aside from shaders, they essentially just slap it into their project and hit upload. It's very unfortunate.
Kaugumme
This should be marked as in-progress or something, because they recently limited detailed public avatar info grabbing. definitely gonna do something for protecting avatars! yay to less bruteforce-collecting from such websites.
Kaugumme
any luck with https://github.com/OFWModz/GTAnti-Rip?
Nacho_
Kaugumme: didn't know that something like this exist. It could work for public Avatars - but not for private. If you sell an Avatar the Package should be as simple as possible for the buyer. You can't expect that every buyer do this process. And still.. VRChat should implement stuff like this in their sdk or something like this.
Shiro K
Kaugumme: Yes - works well for my private avatars. Has only problems with Cloth component or when blendshapes are not set to "Import". I have adapted the code, to handle this special cases and also added the decryption feature to other shaders.
But I think, this is not a solution for avatar creators/sellers.