Roblox is an online game platform and creation system that allows users, mostly children, to program and play games created by themselves or others. It’s free to download, but you can pay for upgrades or special items. The daily user count is enormous, and its revenue is booming, expected to reach $3.5 billion this year.

Recently, this game and DistroKid, a DIY music distributor with over 1,000,000 artists paying for an annual subscription, partnered up, allowing their musicians to add their songs to the game for the 80 million daily active users of Roblox to listen to. Naturally, artists were thrilled about all the new plays they could get and, of course, the royalties.

Unfortunately, in the “terms and conditions” that appear when you fill out the participation form, it’s made clear that plays from Roblox won’t be monetized. So, what’s the point for artists?

The partnership is to launch an invite-only beta program where independent musicians can distribute their music on the platform but must grant rights to their work to Roblox developers for free. This doesn’t mean DistroKid won’t make money; it just won’t pass any to its artists, claiming it’s “great exposure” in return. The idea of working for free doesn’t align with the immense profits of such a large company with so much revenue flow (a whopping $1.3 billion).

And that’s not all; it’s also warned that you might give up your rights only to find out that your music isn’t even used in the game. It’s unclear what they would do with your creation in that case or how long they would “own” it. To avoid legal conflicts, participating artists must own 100% of their publishing rights and not be registered with a performance rights organization (PRO) like ASCAP or BMI.

Why are they giving away their clients' music to Roblox when it's such a strong and highly profitable company? Of course just monetary interest.