Talk:Ubisoft DMCA takedown of Slopsmith

Slopsmith

Slopsmith was a free, self-hosted, open-source music learning platform built on top of the file formats used by Rocksmith 2014 Edition – Remastered, a guitar learning game originally published by Ubisoft in October 2013. The project was publicly launched in April 2026 and was subject to a [[Ubisoft DMCA takedown of Slopsmith|DMCA takedown notice]] filed by Ubisoft on 15 June 2026. Following the takedown, the project announced it would relaunch under the name feedBack, with a restructured codebase addressing the issues raised.

Background

Rocksmith 2014 and the CDLC ecosystem

Rocksmith 2014 launched in October 2013 and supported guitar and bass. From shortly after launch, a community of enthusiasts began developing tools to create and distribute Custom DLC (CDLC) — player-made song charts packaged in the same PSARC format as official content. The primary hub for CDLC distribution became CustomsForge, whose guidelines require uploaders to confirm they hold legal rights to any songs they upload or download.

The foundational tools enabling the CDLC scene are open source and have been publicly available on GitHub throughout the game's commercial life:

• Rocksmith Custom Song Toolkit (rscustom/rocksmith-custom-song-toolkit) — A C# toolkit for creating, editing, and repacking Rocksmith PSARC files, supporting both the original Rocksmith and Rocksmith 2014. A Visual Studio settings file dated 9 April 2014 is present in the repository root, establishing its active development no later than that date. The repo accumulated 1,776 commits and 76 forks before reaching end-of-life; its final release (v2.9.2.1) was published 14 November 2021. Its own README now directs new users to iminashi's DLC Builder as the recommended successor. [https://github.com/rscustom/rocksmith-custom-song-toolkit]
• rs-utils (0x0L/rs-utils) — A collection of Python scripts for manipulating Rocksmith 2014 PSARC archives, SNG note chart files, and audio. Its GitHub repository ID (16445802) places it in the same approximate creation window as the rscustom toolkit, consistent with a 2014 origin. Archived by its owner on 7 January 2025 after 63 commits. Widely referenced across subsequent community tools as the canonical Python implementation; its successor is 0x0L/rocksmith. [https://github.com/0x0L/rs-utils]
• psarcjs (sandiz/psarcjs) — A Node.js module providing PSARC and SNG read/write support, explicitly derived from the rscustom C# implementation and crediting 0x0L's Python work. Published to npm circa 2019–2020. [https://github.com/sandiz/psarcjs]
• Rocksmith2014.NET (iminashi/Rocksmith2014.NET) — F# and C# libraries for reading and writing Rocksmith 2014 file formats, including PSARC handling and SNG-to-XML conversion. Explicitly described as "based largely on the Song Creator Toolkit for Rocksmith." First public release (v0.1.0) on 24 May 2020; 65 releases published through July 2025. This library was a direct dependency of Slopsmith and was named in the Ubisoft DMCA notice. [https://github.com/iminashi/Rocksmith2014.NET]

All of these repositories implement decryption of the same AES-based protection measures that Ubisoft cited in its DMCA notice against Slopsmith. None were subject to any DMCA action prior to June 2026, despite being publicly available and in wide community usage for over a decade.

The community's use of these tools was openly discussed on Ubisoft's own Steam product forums from the earliest weeks after Rocksmith 2014's October 2013 launch. A Steam discussion thread dated 26 December 2013 — just two months after launch — contains multiple users directing each other to SmithyAnvil.com (the primary community site at the time) for custom DLC, with the RocksmithToolkit referenced by name as the creation tool. A separate thread from 26 November 2013 already has users discussing the legality and status of CDLC tools for RS2014. These discussions took place on a platform Ubisoft, as the game's publisher, had full access to monitor. [https://steamcommunity.com/app/221680/discussions/0/648814843241491615] [https://steamcommunity.com/app/221680/discussions/0/666827315226576589]

By June 2026, the CustomsForge Ignition database listed approximately 76,000 community-made CDLC songs. Every one of those song files is built with one of the above tools to ensure compatibility with Rocksmith 2014.

Rocksmith 2014 delisting and Rocksmith+

In 2022, Ubisoft launched Rocksmith+, a subscription-based successor to Rocksmith 2014. In 2023, Ubisoft removed Rocksmith 2014 from sale after its music licensing deals expired. On 19 December 2024, Ubisoft released a replacement edition titled Rocksmith 2014 Edition – Remastered – Learn & Play, which, in Ubisoft's own words, "replaced all licensed songs" with a smaller collection of tracks and exercises. No Mac version of the Learn & Play edition was released. Mac users who owned RS2014 before the 2023 delisting retain access to their copy, but compatibility has been inconsistent — the game broke for some users on macOS versions between Sequoia and macOS 26, with the latest build restoring functionality. Users who did not own RS2014 before the delisting and are on Mac have no official path to any version of Rocksmith at all.

Well over half of all content ever released for Rocksmith 2014 — including the on-disc base game content and the RS1 Compatibility Pack — is no longer available for purchase by any means, as the relevant licensing windows have closed. This figure continues to rise as further 10-year windows expire.

Rocksmith+ is available on Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, iOS, and Android, but not on Mac or Linux. It has been rated Overwhelmingly Negative on Steam. Many users cite high subscription costs, unintuitive UI, unsatisfactory customer service expereiences - particularly around refunds and the poor content offering as reasons for the negative reviews.

Around the time of announcment, Rocksmith Plus was advertised with ["Even the world's premier music learning software needs to be fine-tuned for the millions of songs we plan to have down the road."](https://www.neogaf.com/threads/rocksmith-official-announce-trailer.1609739/) That wording has been removed from everywhere by UbiSoft since then, but it was originally posted on the sign up page for the public beta test of Rocksmith Plus. The largest number of available songs ever seen in the Rocksmith Plus client, is 9,600. However [community tools](https://grip.gimnechiske.org/rs+/page/1) show the total count of all songs having been available across all regions ever, at just over 13,300. The library relies heavily upon AI chord charts to provide content. The number of songs with a non AI Lead Guitar chart, is a little over 4,300.

The Ubisoft San Francisco studio publicly responsible for the Rocksmith series was closed in 2024 following broader studio restructuring. The Rocksmith+ development team was reduced in successive waves of layoffs. The most recent being the week before the DMCA notice.

The Slopsmith project

Slopsmith was announced publicly on CustomsForge and Reddit in April 2026. Initially it was a Docker-based, self-hosted web application that read song and note-chart files from a user's own installation of Rocksmith 2014, rendering them in a browser-based highway renderer using Three.js. With community contributions it grew into also having a standalone Windows Desktop version, built on the same codebase. It did not distribute any Ubisoft song content. The codebase did however contain hardcoded AES decryption keys embedded in the Rocksmith 2014 executable — the basis of Ubisoft's §1201 claim.

The project's name was a deliberate reference to "AI slop" — the primary developer wrote the majority of the codebase using AI assistance, initially for personal use. It was shared publicly only after the developer concluded others might find it useful. The community adopted it rapidly and ran with it, with the platform becoming feature-complete enough to attract significant interest within weeks of its public release.

Slopsmith at the time of the DMCA had extended the capabilities of Rocksmith 2014 in several directions:

• Support for drums and piano/keys, in addition to guitar and bass
• An instrument-agnostic plugin architecture, with the stated goal of eventually supporting any instrument via standard music notation
• Ability for the user to choose their highway style
• Multiplayer functionality, a feature Rocksmith+ had removed from the franchise
• 4 player multiplayer, with the goal of each player being able to have their own screen and notetrack
• Profile import from Rocksmith 2014 save files
• Addition of automatic stem seperation and a mixer to allow for different levels for guitars, bass, vocals and drums
• A UI for 5 string bass and 7 and 8 string guitars
• Auto beat syncronization of a guitar pro or music.xml file to an audio file to make new content. Including piano, drums and vocals arrangments when the source data was present
• ABility to use VST and NAM profiles for instrument tones
• Switching of software and hardware based tone systems via midi in time with the song
• User created lessons
• User created exercise games
• Web browser accesible, light client friendly (one user reported running the Slopsmith web client on the Android headunit in their car)

Slopsmith ran on Linux via Docker, making it the only viable option for Linux users wishing to engage with their Rocksmith 2014 song libraries — a platform Ubisoft has never supported. It was also a practical path for Mac users experiencing the inconsistent macOS compatibility issues, or those who never owned RS2014 before the delisting and wanting to make use of the existing archive of community made content.

Slopsmith features prominently in the all-time top posts in r/rocksmith with 2 of the top 5 all time posts, (as of June 17, 2026) being the Slopsmith initial release and 1 month on update posts.

The DMCA takedown

On 15 June 2026, an authorised agent of Ubisoft Entertainment SA filed a DMCA takedown notice with GitHub targeting Slopsmith and its associated repositories. The notice asserted anti-circumvention violations under 17 U.S.C. §1201 over four AES-based protection measures embedded in the Rocksmith 2014 game client: PSARC archive encryption, SNG note-chart encryption (PC), SNG note-chart encryption (Mac), and EVAS profile encryption.

GitHub published the notice with a preamble stating: "While GitHub did not find sufficient information to determine a valid anti-circumvention claim, we determined that this takedown notice contains other valid copyright claim(s)." GitHub did not specify the nature of those other claims. The takedown was processed against the entire network of 131 repositories, including personal forks held by individual users.

The Slopsmith maintainers complied with the takedown, removing the elements they understood to be the basis of Ubisoft's §1201 assertions. The project is continuing development under the name feedBack — a rename that had been under community discussion for approximately a month prior to the DMCA notice, with the new name settled on just days before the DMCA was filed. The relaunch is pending clarification of the outstanding copyright issues identified in GitHub's determination, with the downtime being used to restructure the codebase. The "AI slop" reference in the original name had always been intended as a temporary joke rather than a permanent identity.

Status

As of June 17, 2026, the project is still being worked on, the name change to feedBack is being worked through - just earlier than originally roadmapped. The code refferenced in the 1201 claim has been removed. But the project is not publicly available pending clarification of the copyright issue. GitHub has been contacted via email seeking clarification.

References

• Ubisoft DMCA notice, github/dmca, 2026-06-15: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2026/06/2026-06-15-ubisoft.md
• Rocksmith 2014 Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/221680/
• CustomsForge Slopsmith announcement: https://customsforge.com/topic/81272-slopsmith-open-source-web-app-for-playing-practicing-and-creating-rocksmith-2014-cdlc/
• rscustom/rocksmith-custom-song-toolkit: https://github.com/rscustom/rocksmith-custom-song-toolkit
• 0x0L/rs-utils: https://github.com/0x0L/rs-utils
• Community tool for tracking regional Rocksmith Plus contenthttps://grip.gimnechiske.org/rs+/page/1
• Archive of the Millions Of Songs quote https://www.neogaf.com/threads/rocksmith-official-announce-trailer.1609739/
• Consumer Rights Wiki DMCA article: https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Ubisoft_DMCA_takedown_of_Slopsmith

~2026-193 (talk) 21:48, 17 June 2026 (UTC)