Has Sony Gone Too Far “Moderating” LittleBigPlanet?

We all love user-generated content. There’s something magical about being able to adventure into worlds that we crafted alongside our peers with a handful of tools and our imagination. It’s no secret that LittleBigPlanet has capitalized on this communal creativity, offering players a nearly limitless palette of set pieces and objects with which to design their own platforming masterpieces that are as much self-contained games as they are individual levels. It’s no surprise, then, that this massive tool box is capable of pumping out levels and items that look awfully similar to existing intellectual properties which are protected under copyright law. Despite fair use, Sony has decided to take no chances and are banning levels that contain what they believe to be copyrighted material.

Not only are they banning these levels without any kind of warning or contact to the offending users, but they are also restricting those levels from being uploaded after they’ve been banned. What this means to LittleBigPlanet users is that you can spend an entire day working on a sprawling, completely original Sackboy playground, but if the final prize looks almost like Sonic the Hedgehog or a power up from Mario, your entire level will be banned and you don’t have the option of removing that single object and resubmitting the level.

Image by BasketSnake (because I'd rather not get sued)

Needless to say, the LBP forums are stocked full of complaints from users who have been censored and aren’t too happy about it. A common argument is that under fair use copyright law, LBP levels should be considered parodies and therefore be exempt from any form of copyright infringement. Whether the parody argument holds water or not, there are a number of points in the fair use policy that may or may not be enough to reasonably defend this type of copyright infringement on a case-by-case basis (the fair use policy can be read in whole at copyright.gov).

Okay, so maybe Sony and Media Molecule have a legal reason to be concerned, but let’s be practical here. Every piece of fan fiction ever written could be considered copyright infringement, as well as every time a local musician covers a popular song at open mic night without the original artist’s written consent (which they never have). Do we see a massive amount of lawsuits against these small-time writers and musicians? No, and we never will…except maybe from Metallica. This kind of imitation is often considered flattering, and copyright holders turn a blind eye to it. This imitation often helps their sales by fostering interest in their products, unless the imitators become profit-seeking competitors. Given LittleBigPlanet’s current setup though, level designers are incapable of making any form of revenue since their levels are handled as freeware.

Also, there is currently no public record of arguments being leveled at Sony by copyright holders for unauthorized use of their intellectual properties. While Sony’s actions aren’t criminal because of their end user license agreement, it does seem awfully extreme for a seemingly benign issue. They should at least give users the ability to remove offending content from their levels and resubmit them. That’s not too much to ask.