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FREEDOM251

Freedom251 › Blog › AI scraping

How game developers can protect original art and code from AI scraping

By Freedom251 Team · · 9 min read

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You cannot reliably stop every crawler with a single switch. The practical answer is a layered program: document who created each work, put confidentiality and no-training terms in every relevant contract, keep source code and unreleased assets private, require authentication for downloads, enforce server-side bot controls, publish a clear rights reservation, and preserve evidence in case a platform or model reproduces your material.

Robots.txt is only a signal to compliant crawlers. Authentication, signed expiring URLs, rate limits, web-application-firewall rules, private repositories and contractual restrictions provide stronger control. Registration, provenance records and access logs may not prevent copying, but they improve your ability to prove ownership and seek a remedy.

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Start with the right expectation: protection is layered, not absolute

Public game pages, screenshots, trailers and downloadable builds are exposed to automated collection. A determined scraper can ignore a published preference, imitate a browser, use a stolen account or collect material from mirrors. Your goal is therefore to reduce unnecessary exposure, make unauthorized use harder, and create evidence that connects a copied asset to your studio.

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Separate the problem into three surfaces:

  • Public presentation: marketing pages, documentation, screenshots and released binaries.
  • Delivery infrastructure: asset servers, download endpoints, content-delivery caches and APIs.
  • Development systems: source repositories, build machines, design storage, issue trackers and vendor workspaces.

Controls that work on one surface do not automatically protect the others. A robots.txt file on your website does nothing for a private Git repository, while a private repository does not stop a crawler from downloading every image deliberately served to unauthenticated visitors.

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Build an ownership and provenance record before a dispute

Copyright and provenance remain important even as lawmakers address generative AI. The U.S. Copyright Office began a formal AI-and-copyright inquiry in 2023 and received more than 10,000 comments. It published a report part on digital replicas on July 31, 2024 and a part on the copyrightability of generative-AI outputs on January 29, 2025. Those dates do not create a universal rule for every country or asset; they show why studios should preserve facts about human creation and authorization.

Inventory every protectable component

Create a register covering concept art, character sheets, textures, models, animation, audio, dialogue, narrative text, shaders, tools, scripts and production code. Record the title or internal identifier, creator, creation dates, repository location, first publication date and the version shipped in each build.

Preserve the evidence that proves continuity

  • Keep layered source files, sketches, design documents and exported revisions.
  • Retain commit history, pull requests, code reviews, build hashes and release notes.
  • Store signed contractor assignments, licenses and approvals with the asset record.
  • Record which portions were human-authored, AI-assisted or AI-generated, and keep edit notes showing the human contribution.
  • Hash distinctive files and maintain perceptual fingerprints for images, audio and video so later matches can be compared.

Back up the register in a location with restricted write access. A timestamped, tamper-evident archive is more persuasive than a spreadsheet that can be silently changed after a dispute starts. Copyrightability and registration strategy differ by jurisdiction, so obtain advice for important releases and any live claim.

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Put restrictions in employment, contractor and vendor agreements

Technical controls cannot govern a contractor or software vendor that is allowed to download your files. Contracts should define what may be accessed, how it may be processed and what must happen when the relationship ends.

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Clauses to address explicitly

  • Ownership and license: require a written assignment or an appropriately scoped license for every deliverable, including source files and revisions.
  • Confidentiality: identify unreleased builds, roadmaps, source code, art files and player data as confidential information.
  • No training and no redistribution: prohibit submitting your material to external model training, fine-tuning, benchmarking, public prompts or datasets unless you give written approval.
  • Approved tools: name the categories of software and AI services that may be used, and require prior approval for anything that uploads studio data.
  • Retention and deletion: specify where data may be stored, how long it may remain, and require return or verifiable deletion at termination.
  • Subprocessors and model providers: require disclosure of downstream providers, retention periods and whether prompts or uploads are used to improve a service.
  • Security and incident notice: require MFA, access logging, rapid breach notification and cooperation with investigations.
  • Audit and remedies: reserve a practical right to verify compliance and define notice, indemnity and escalation procedures that fit the relationship.

Apply the same policy to publishers, localization houses, outsourcing studios, marketing agencies and bug-reporting platforms. A “do not train” promise is useful only when the agreement identifies the data covered and the party responsible for enforcing it.

Lock down websites and asset delivery

Serve only what must be public. Keep unreleased files behind authentication and put downloads behind signed URLs that expire quickly. Separate public marketing assets from internal masters so a compromise of a public bucket does not expose the entire art library.

Controls and their trade-offs

Control What it does Trade-off or failure mode
robots.txt and machine-readable rights notice Communicates that specified paths or uses are not authorized for compliant crawlers and records your preference. Non-compliant bots can ignore it; it is not authentication.
Authentication and private storage Requires an account or service credential before an asset can be fetched. Creates account-management friction and must be configured without exposing credentials.
Signed, expiring URLs Limits a download link to a file, requester and short time window. Links can still be copied during their validity; clock and key management matter.
Rate limits and bot rules Slows enumeration, blocks suspicious request patterns and reduces automated load. Aggressive thresholds can block legitimate players, press, modders or accessibility tools.
Hotlink and referer controls Discourages other sites from embedding or mass-fetching your files. Referer headers can be absent or forged, so do not treat them as a sole security boundary.
Server-side deny rules Rejects identified networks, paths, user agents or request patterns before files are delivered. Identifiers change; false positives require monitoring and review.
Logging and alerts Shows repeated enumeration, unusual geographic patterns, high request volume and account misuse. Logs need retention, access controls and a process for investigating alerts.

A European Parliament study distinguishes blocking bot traffic at the server level from assuming that every crawler will obey robots.txt. Use both where appropriate: publish the preference, then enforce access decisions at the edge and origin.

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Publish a precise rights reservation

State the owner, the domains and asset classes covered, the prohibited uses (including model training, fine-tuning, extraction and redistribution), and a contact route for permission requests. Keep the notice current when domains, repositories or licensing terms change. Machine-readable signals are most useful when they match the human-readable terms and your technical enforcement.

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Protect source code and unreleased material

Source code is usually more valuable than a public screenshot and should remain private until release. Use separate repositories or access groups for game code, build scripts, signing infrastructure and art masters. A developer who needs to edit gameplay code does not automatically need production signing keys or the unreleased cinematic archive.

  1. Require MFA for repository, storage, CI and administrative accounts.
  2. Apply least privilege: grant read, write and release rights separately, review membership regularly and remove dormant accounts.
  3. Protect branches: require review, signed commits where practical, status checks and controlled release tags.
  4. Use short-lived credentials: rotate tokens, avoid shared accounts and keep signing keys outside source trees.
  5. Scan continuously: detect secrets, vulnerable dependencies and accidental public exposure before a build ships.
  6. Segment infrastructure: isolate build workers and artifact storage from public download systems; log exports and administrative actions.
  7. Control issue attachments: prohibit API keys, unreleased assets and proprietary dumps in public tickets or forums.

Test recovery. A backup that cannot be restored, or a revoked token that remains valid in a build cache, creates a false sense of security.

Understand what EU and U.S. rules can—and cannot—do

EU rights reservations and provider duties

Recital 105 of the EU AI Act says: “Where the rights to opt out has been expressly reserved in an appropriate manner, providers of general-purpose AI models need to obtain an authorisation from rightsholders if they want to carry out text and data mining over such works.” The practical question is whether your reservation is expressed in an appropriate, technically recognizable way and whether the provider is subject to the relevant EU obligations. It is not a guarantee that every worldwide crawler will ask permission.

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Article 53 of the consolidated EU AI Act text current on July 27, 2026 requires general-purpose AI providers to maintain a copyright policy, respect rights reservations and publish a sufficiently detailed summary of training content. European Commission consultation material published December 1, 2025 discusses technically implementable reservation protocols, including commitments to respect robots.txt and subsequent IETF standards. The consultation does not establish that every crawler already follows one universal protocol.

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EU transparency obligations cited in Article 50 apply from August 2, 2026 for covered AI-generated or manipulated content. That rule concerns provider transparency, not a mechanism that prevents a studio’s files from being collected. The European Commission’s intellectual-property factsheet of July 30, 2026 treats training-data management and protection of intellectual assets as active IP-management responsibilities.

United States access controls and copyright

Section 1201 of Title 17 addresses circumvention of technological measures that effectively control access to copyrighted works, subject to statutory exceptions. Whether it applies to a particular scraper depends on the control used, the conduct and the applicable exception. Do not assume that a robots.txt violation, a copied image or a model output automatically proves a Section 1201 claim. Registration, fair-use analysis, contractual terms and jurisdiction can change the available remedies; qualified counsel should assess a live dispute.

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Detect copying and preserve evidence that can be used

Prevention and proof are different objectives. Monitor public model demonstrations, code repositories, asset marketplaces, game listings and social posts for near-identical art, audio or code. Use your hashes and perceptual fingerprints to compare suspicious files, and keep the original and suspected copy in separate evidence stores.

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Capture an evidence package

  • Save the complete URL, account or repository identifier, access date and time zone.
  • Preserve request and response logs, relevant headers, screenshots and downloaded samples.
  • Record file hashes, software used to collect the sample and every person who handled it.
  • Keep the chain of title, publication history and contract terms for the matching work.
  • Note whether the material was publicly accessible, obtained through an account or taken from an internal system.

Escalate in proportion to the facts: use a platform’s takedown process where available, send a contractual notice to a vendor or partner, and consult counsel before alleging infringement publicly or filing a claim. A clear timeline helps distinguish an accidental exposure from systematic collection.

Choose controls by risk, not by hype

Small studios should first fund controls that protect the highest-value assets: private repositories, MFA, least privilege, signed downloads, dependable backups and useful logs. Add sophisticated bot-management services when public traffic, abuse volume or operational capacity justifies them.

  • For an unreleased project: prioritize private storage, short-lived credentials, access reviews and strict contractor terms.
  • For a public documentation site: publish rights reservations, deploy rate limits and WAF/CDN rules, and monitor origin logs.
  • For a mod-friendly game: distinguish assets intended for player tools from confidential masters, and document what modders may redistribute.
  • For a global launch: map hosting, publisher and defendant locations before relying on EU or U.S. remedies.

Every blocking rule has a coverage-versus-friction cost. Review false positives, provide a permission route for legitimate access and avoid breaking accessibility tools or ordinary players in pursuit of indistinguishable automated traffic.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does robots.txt stop AI scraping?

No. It communicates a preference to compliant crawlers. Use authentication, signed URLs, rate limits and server-side rules when preventing delivery matters.

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Should a studio put a no-training notice on every image?

Use a consistent rights reservation covering the relevant domains and asset classes, then support it with machine-readable signals and enforceable technical controls. Individual labels can supplement, but cannot replace, a coherent policy.

What if an employee used an AI tool on confidential code?

Preserve the prompt, uploaded files, account details and service terms; revoke exposed credentials; notify the responsible security and legal contacts; and determine retention, training and deletion obligations before taking further action.

Can a copied model output prove that my game files were in training data?

A similar output may support an investigation but rarely proves the training source by itself. Provenance records, access logs, technical comparisons and provider disclosures are needed to evaluate attribution and available claims.

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