Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

LittleBigPlanet Creations Raising Copyright Questions

Posted by Soulskill on from the darth-sackboy-the-hedgehog dept.

Joystiq's Law of the Game column uses the recently released LittleBigPlanet to address the question of intellectual property rights for user-created content within and for games. At this point, Sony's ToS claims a great deal of control over users' work, unlike Second Life's, which is much more permissive. GiantBomb has a related story pointing out creations within LittleBigPlanet that are copies of other games, and how they could lead to legal troubles for Sony if they aren't quick about taking them down.

7 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Sony by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sony is one of the worst offenders with draconian EULA's. I am not surprised by this. They don't want to have people creating their own content to own their own content. They want to own our content.

    I learned a long time ago to just say no to Sony.

    1. Re:Sony by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      As far as i remember, the same issues arrised with the first neverwinternight and its editor and atari's policy.
      There even was a slashdot article.

    2. Re:Sony by Frigga's+Ring · · Score: 2, Informative

      Admittedly, I don't know everything about LBP's distro system, but I'd like to point out that both Sims 2 and Spore had built-in distribution systems where content you created was uploaded to a Maxis server and made available to other users.

    3. Re:Sony by Chaos+Incarnate · · Score: 2, Informative

      I haven't played either of those, so I wasn't aware of that. On the other hand, reading Spore's EULA, EA is granted "an exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, fully transferable and sub-licensable worldwide right and license to use your contributions in any way and for any purpose in connection with the Software and related goods and services". That's even more restrictive than the Sony terms (as Sony doesn't get exclusive rights to user material).

      --
      Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
    4. Re:Sony by xhrit · · Score: 3, Informative

      second neverwinter nights. the first was a mmo run by aol.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_(AOL_game)

      --
      Dungeon Tactics : Free Open Source SRPG
  2. Re:DMCA by phyrz · · Score: 2, Informative

    Although I think they would have to change their tune, and allow people copyright over their own designs. IANAL of course.

    --
    Don't point that gun at him, he's an unpaid intern!
  3. Inconsistent / illogical ToS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    So in effect it says "It belongs to you, but you can do nothing with it and you are not allowed to profit from it, but we are."

    Anyone see a problem of logic there? A judge is going to tear that ToS apart.