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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.

21 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: 5, Insightful

      You've pretty much hit the nail on the head there. The only thing really new in this whole thing is that Sony is claiming ownership of their users' creations - something that even Microsoft wouldn't attempt. If Sony hadn't claimed ownership, there would be no issue.

      I mean, really, PCs have had user-created content for ages. And by ages, I mean "since the start of the PC," since I recall using a level editor to create new content for a simple sidescroller 20 years ago on the PC. Level editors? Not new.

      PC game publishers have never had an issue with user-created content. If the user creates it and it infringes, that's their problem, not the publisher or developer or anyone involved in the original game.

      The only new thing that Sony brings to the table with LittleBigPlanet is their restrictive license where they claim ownership of your creations. Otherwise LittleBigPlanet is just a generic sidescroller with lousy jumping controls and the world's creepiest avatars.

      Sidescrollers with level editors have been done before. It's just that no one before Sony was stupid enough to claim ownership of content that users created, so this issue has never existed before.

      Sony's dumb license, Sony's dumb problem. End of story.

    2. Re:Sony by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Also, I don't see how that game creation could violate copyrights, they're such cartoonish that could well fall under the fair use gambit, under parodies or limited usage.

      until one post the entire star wars saga, of course, as a single level

    3. Re:Sony by Chaos+Incarnate · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sidescrollers with level editors have been done before. It's just that no one before Sony was stupid enough to claim ownership of content that users created, so this issue has never existed before.

      As far as I know, nobody's ever had built-in distribution for end users' content before like LBP does. It's much simpler for Sony to do so if they are assigned the copyright; then they know they have the right to distribute it wherever they want to.

      --
      Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
    4. 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.

    5. 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."
    6. Re:Sony by Chyeld · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually, that's standard verbage and would be far more acceptable than claiming ownership.

      EA's EULA simply says that you are giving them permission to use your work. Sony's is actually claiming your work is theirs.

      The difference is, with EA you still own your work and theoretically could do whatever else you wanted with it.

    7. 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
    8. Re:Sony by Chaos+Incarnate · · Score: 3, Funny

      Did you read Sony's TOS yourself? (The section in question is #10.) I see no claim of ownership there; in fact, they explicitly deny ownership.

      EA's license does not let you do whatever else you want with it; you grant them exclusive rights to it. Sony will still allow you to use your work non-commercially (and implies that commercial use can be negotiated, unlike the EA license.)

      --
      Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
  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. sigh by thermian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They could just say 'anything you do here is your own responsibility' and leave it at that.

    If they were stupid enough to allow claims of copyright or copyright infringement in their game it'll die like a jolly fast dying thing, of death.

    I mean seriously.. its a game...

    --
    A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
    1. Re:sigh by Leonard+Fedorov · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But I think thats the entire point. It is a game, and if you can make/play a recreation of another game in it, that might (in the eyes of executives or whathaveyou) to lessen your desire to actually buy that game. Instant lawsuit.

    2. Re:sigh by mattbee · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They could just say 'anything you do here is your own responsibility' and leave it at that.

      Sony could say that if they weren't hosting the user-made content themselves, and distributing it to other players. If players keep it on their own consoles, it's nobody else's business.

      --
      Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
    3. Re:sigh by thermian · · Score: 2, Interesting

      But I think thats the entire point. It is a game, and if you can make/play a recreation of another game in it, that might (in the eyes of executives or whathaveyou) to lessen your desire to actually buy that game. Instant lawsuit.

      That argument falls on one point, the games industry have been using each others idea's for decades. That's where we get 'genre's' from.

      --
      A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
    4. Re:sigh by DaveV1.0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You forget that here in the U.S., one can be sued for anything and thus Sony, who has deep pockets, can be sued if a map you created and shared damages little johnny's morals or psyche or happens to be an exact duplicate of the beginning level of Super Mario.

      --
      There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
  4. Um... by _Hellfire_ · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So by Sony's logic, if I fire up Microsoft Word and write a document, then Microsoft owns the copyright to my creation?

    I fail to see the difference between this game and a word processor.

    --
    "And then I visited Wikipedia ...and the next 8 hours are a blur..."
    1. Re:Um... by Freebirth+Toad · · Score: 2, Funny

      I fail to see the difference between this game and a word processor.

      Not the most ringing endorsement for the game. Of course, confusing a spreadsheet program with a flight sim is a little more understandable.

    2. Re:Um... by Forbman · · Score: 2, Funny

      topologically, a cow is more similar to a donut than a sphere.

  5. Gradius copy by bryansj · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is a great example of what can be done with the level editor, but is anyone going to actually confuse it with the real thing? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg0ZBHdz7wM This game has barely been released and we are getting stuff of pretty high quality. I can't wait to see what happens in the next few months.

    1. Re:Gradius copy by bryansj · · Score: 2, Funny

      Am I actually supposed to read TFA before posting? You must be new here.

  6. Ever read your EULAs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The modding toolkits that come with PC games usually contain clauses that say the PC game developer or publisher owns the rights to all content created with the mod toolkits. UnrealED is a great example of this.