Let’s start by saying that we love LittleBigPlanet. Really. We stand behind the TSA review which said the game was unmissable and awarded it 10/10. It’s a good game. No, it’s a great game. We love it. Lots.
I want to be very clear about how great this piece of software is because I really don’t want anybody to be under the false impression that this article is designed to put anyone off buying the game. If you don’t already have the game its worth buying it. In fact, you’re missing out if you don’t own it.
This article, however, deals with the problems that some users have had with the game. From the server issues that people have had to the borderline extortion that was the first week DLC and now the furore over “moderated” levels. That’s moderated in inverted comments because Sony seems to think that “moderated” is a synonym for “deleted” or possibly “deleted and prevented from ever being uploaded again”
Firstly I will address the server issues. There is obviously a lot of traffic on the servers and there is obviously a substantial amount of data being transferred when people meet up online to enjoy a user-created level. You have the character and controls from each person and the level data all being transferred so I’m sure that would be quite a load. Unfortunately that just isn’t a good enough excuse (although SCEE and MM have given no excuses, they haven’t even acknowledged that there’s a problem with this). They are selling a product on the principle that it’s fun to do online with other people so they should have the ability to do it online with other people solid before they take your money. All we can hope for is that SCEE get the servers sorted in time for us to have a few weeks of lag-free fun before they go in to meltdown again on Christmas day.
Now, to the downloadable content. £3.99 for a t-shirt that proves you had the game in its first week seems a lot. Personally I think that asking that much for that item from the people that have supported your project from week one (and in the months leading up to week one) is disrespectful. I think Sony should have given it away as a thank you for those loyal users standing by the project for so long and early-adopting, especially in light of the fact that those early adopters only got half a game because the multiplayer servers are so flaky and the created content so prone to deletion without adequate warning or reason. This brings me to the biggest issue: The “moderated” content.
Tempers are flaring and users are losing patience with the whole moderation process, criticising Sony and Media Molecule everywhere they can find an outlet. SCEE even saw fit to release a statement on Threespeech, which should be noted for two reasons: Firstly Sony don’t respond to their disgruntled users very often and secondly, Threespeech don’t very often publish anything around the time when it happens, they usually need a three month run-up and a carefully placed trampette to get themselves onto a bandwagon. So this must be an important issue.
Geosautus, the creator of one of the most popular (and really rather good) levels, World of Colour (amongst others) told TheSixthAxis today: “I understand why they need to moderate stuff that is naughty and/or offending, but I don’t understand why they need to moderate levels inspired by other games. It’s no different then fanart. It’s just a tribute to the game. I just don’t see the threat here.
If they aren’t careful with the moderating they might just put a lot of people off making levels, and that’s the last thing they want.”
I agree, Sony have got to handle this carefully for fear of putting people off the game altogether but at the same time they have to be very careful from a legal standpoint too otherwise they risk costly court cases and (more) bad publicity.
Well, I’ve looked into the matter and you’ll all be overjoyed to hear that it’s not as simple as it seems. The primary reason SCEE have given for “moderating” levels is that they either contain offensive material (although that is an impossible term to define as one person’s acceptable is another person’s offensive, where do they draw the line?) or material that is copyrighted. Here’s where it all gets a bit complicated. Some users (myself included) have lost levels that they are sure had nothing offensive and nothing that infringed copyright. The moderating system used in the game gives no feedback as to why your level may have been “moderated” although to their credit SCEE and Media Molecule have admitted that this needs a bit of work and are already looking into ways of improving the feedback they give to “moderated” level creators.
An unfortunate side-effect of having your level deleted is that it removes all evidence that there ever was offensive or copyrighted material in the first place. SCEE can’t prove there was (they don’t have to thanks to their EULA) and the user can’t prove that there wasn’t. In many ways the question is moot because the process has annoyed people enough that it doesn’t really matter if they were breaching copyright and deserved to be taken down, they are still going to shout about how unfair it is.
In preparation for writing this article I read hundreds of posts on dozens of internet forum pages, I watched numerous videos of levels on YouTube which those forum posters had claimed were deleted unnecessarily. At no point did I find any solid evidence that SCEE or Media Molecule had removed a level that did not breach copyright.
Let me restate that. I can’t find any evidence that LittleBigPlanet levels have been deleted without good reason. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. I myself had a level “moderated” which I believe had no reason to be deleted. Our very own CC_Star had the same thing happen to him and I trust his word, if he says there was no infringement then as far as I’m concerned there was no infringement. My point here is this, the search for evidence was futile because by the very nature of the problem the evidence is deleted. In the very few cases where people had video of their level before it was removed there was always a case of copyright infringement. I believe that levels have been deleted without reason (even though I can’t prove it) and I think Sony should admit this and apologise but I also think that in the vast majority of cases there has been copyright infringement and the level removal was necessary to remove legal liability from Media Molecule and Sony.
All things considered I think there is a bigger problem here which is symptomatic of the world of digital distribution, file-sharing and user-created content. The vast majority of users do not understand what copyright is, means or can be used to protect. For instance, one of the aforementioned disgruntled forum posters simply could not believe that his level may have been removed because it contained an image of a Playstation 3. His logic was that the game was exclusive to that machine, everybody playing on it would have that machine sitting in front of them and therefore know what it looked like and his level was, in a way, a tribute to the console. Legally it doesn’t matter, Sony own the image of the PS3 so we can’t use it. No exceptions, it doesn’t matter what we think is right, the law is clear and Sony/Media Molecule have got to protect themselves against lawsuits or potential misuse of their own intellectual property.
Creators think that because their levels are a “tribute” to other games that they should be ok. According to the law, they’re not (and in UK law neither is the fanart which Geosautus cited as precedent in his comments above). You simply cannot use the likeness of something you didn’t design. Finally, another argument I’ve seen for this copyright infringement to be allowed to pass is the “parody” argument. This is the most interesting. According to the law in the litigious hotbed that is the good ol’ USA you are allowed to use the likeness of a thing in order to parody or mimic it for comedic purposes. So, all those levels that depict 360s with the red ring of death would be fine because they are intended for comedic parody.
The problem with this argument is that UK law does not have an allowance in its copyright legislation for comedic parody. That means that all those 360 levels mentioned above are illegal in the UK.
Now, I was unable to discover where the LittleBigPlanet servers are located (although they seem to be in the UK) so we are using a little conjecture for the sake of a fluid argument here but if they are in the UK then those levels break the law and must be removed. In fact, if those levels are available to the UK then the server, whether located in the UK, US or anywhere in the world, is being used to distribute illegal material in the UK and Sony/Media Molecule must remove the levels to stop themselves being sued in the UK. There really is no choice to be made here, they either remove levels or get sued. Remember the eyes of the gaming world are on LBP, Sony does not need a lawsuit.
I think the levels of complaints are mostly due to the fact that most people don’t understand copyright law. There is a notion that certain things are public domain or that because we’re not making money from them it must be OK to use other people’s intellectual property. I remember about ten years ago I produced an interactive CD-Rom that could be distributed to thousands for a client that was managed by committee. They were a non-profit organisation so the whole project was done on the cheap for them and the final bill was £1,600. When it came time to hand over the master copy and sign off on payment one committee member questioned the payment saying that £1,600 for one CD was unreasonable as she could go to HMV and buy a CD for £15. It took us about an hour to explain that she couldn’t then copy that CD and give it to thousands of other people as that was illegal; she was paying for the right to use our intellectual copyright. This was an intelligent woman who had a hand in running a large organisation. I thought my business partner might throw her out the window at one point.
So, there is really no question, if we stray from copyright law we have got to be moderated (although as mentioned previously the process could be managed more satisfactorily). So why then are there still so many levels, including the most popular ones, still online when they clearly and deliberately break copyright? Is it because those are the best levels so Sony will let them slide for as long as they think they can get away with it so the user experience remains as good as possible? Is it because the sheer number of levels being uploaded means that it takes many man hours to keep the whole thing regulated and respond to all the user grief reports? Is it because in the hundreds of thousands of times these levels have been played nobody has grief reported them and Sony simply don’t know of their existence?
I will let you make your own decision as to which scenario is most plausible but I do have one more thing to add. As an experiment, call it investigative journalism, I grief reported three levels. Each one had been played tens of thousands of times. Each one was on the first three pages of the “cool levels” section. Each one clearly and deliberately broke copyright law and was also clearly unable to use the “Comedic Parody” clause that we’ve already discussed and, I think, proven useless anyway. Each level broke intellectual copyright in a different field, one was gaming, one was movies and one was music. 24 hours later and how many had been moderated? None.
Sources and further reading:
Sony Statement. Posted on ThreeSpeech about the moderation issues.
Kotaku Story. About the moderation issues.
Littlebigworkshop Moderated Levels Thread. An example of the comments floating around cyberspace.
U.S. Copyright Law. So you can see where I got my facts from.
U.K. Copyright Law. So you can see the difference between U.K. and U.S. law.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Last paragraph is definate food for thought! I fully beleive that Sony are picking and choosing when to apply the rules to suit their need to keep a good user experience.
It’s such a shame things like this blight the experience. It takes days of commitment to produce a decent, polished level and to have it wiped with no explaination would seriously boil my piss.
colossalblue Says:
November 14th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
That’s one theory, hopefully Sony will release another (more helpful) statement soon. If nothing else they need to reassure the people who have invested in them that they haven’t lost the plot.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
TSA have spoken, I’m waiting for an official responce from Sony as to the last paragraph. Cb, this is very good investigative journalism, do you work on Watchdog?
colossalblue Says:
November 15th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Oh, that’d be great, I’d love to be the really annoying one that goes to builders and says “But you knew you were taking the old lady’s money mr builder, will she ever get it back?” and then the push my cameraman over and run away with their pixelated face and their arse crack showing.
I hope the BBC are watching this.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
That whole piece should have been ended with ‘DONE!’
thefamouskevin Says:
November 14th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Or ‘I rest my case’.
colossalblue Says:
November 14th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
I said it into myself.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Also, I’m so over the expensive t-shirt thing. Just don’t buy it.
colossalblue Says:
November 14th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I didn’t but if I called you a c*nt you would remember it this time next week and still think I was rude. The extortionate t-shirt is the same thing.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
that was by far the longest passage I’ve read since I was a kid , could I write an essay It ?
A beginning , middle and end , plot twist ! protagonist ( TSA users ) and the evil empire (Media molicule ?) LOL
colossalblue Says:
November 14th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
I’m not sure it’s worth dissecting anything I write, it’s hardly Dickens now is it!
November 14th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
“…Our very own CC_Star had the same thing happen to him and I trust his word, if he says there was no infringement then as far as I’m concerned there was no infringement…”
I suck at creating, I’m not capable of creating anything that even remotely resembles anything to do with anyone elses IP.
It took me two long sittings on the game just to get a suspended platform, with a bit of string hanging off it with some sponge on the end
I then built on this with some more shite, electrifed surfaces a bit of fire
Can MM tell me what infringement took place?
Perhaps it was offensive? Nope there was zero offensive content in it absolutely zero.
The only thing offensive about it was how rubbish it was, but I don’t care it was mine, I spent hours creating it, I sort of enjoyed myself, and I brought the full game on day 1 so I could continue with this experience
And that where all these problems started
A cynic may even say the 2 week delay was rather convenient as there was such a struggle to make the release day anyway, with server reliability being the biggest problem.
November 14th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
With regards to using the image of the PS3 (or anything else for that matter)
Sony and every other company have to defend their IP, if they do not defend it then someone else could use their IP, and when Sony take them to court over it, the other company could provide examples of when Sony never defended their IP (in LBP for example) then a judge could decide that Sony have forfeited their right to use that IP exclusively through not defending it.
I still very unclear that, EVERY other single game ever made which has user created content/mods/levels ALWAYS has IP infringing stuff
Why has this game of all games become the focus of attention?
What about Mario levels created with the Doom engine?
There are literally thousands more examples of this, and never before have I seen deletion sorry moderation to anywhere near this scale if any at all
With regards to the PS3.
Your use of the Playstation Networks means you accept ALL the terms and conditions in the EULA
So why do other PS3 games with user created content not get the same iron fist, I’m not going to name the games because I enjoy this content as anybody should
But it is really odd that the EULA is only being selectively enforced
colossalblue Says:
November 14th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
I would agree with that but I suppose from a legal point of view there is no defence in saying “but they’re breaking the law too”.
I really think it might have something to do with the LBP servers being located in the UK where copyright law is about 20 years out of time with the rest of the world.
cc_star Says:
November 15th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Lets move them then, not sure how. Michael see what you can do
I’m going post my level to be hosted in Sealand
http://www.sealandgov.org/
Michael Says:
November 16th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
What’s a server?
fredrikpedersen Says:
November 16th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Good one.
cc_star Says:
November 16th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
It’s that thing which used to break every time there was a convention/show on and sometimes on f5 Thursdays
the good ol’ days
Michael Says:
November 17th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I’m welling up now.
axelz0r Says:
November 15th, 2008 at 1:53 am
I think the reason why we haven’t seen mass moderation like this before is because all those other IP infringements have not been located in one easily controllable and moderation able space.
Mods and other user created levels for other games are distributed and stored through various mediums and would be very difficult to control. Sony and MM are just exercising their power to control the content. I think it sucks that some levels that aren’t actually infringing anything are being moderated, but I guess those are just teething problems with the whole LBP experience (which their really shouldn’t be to begin with).
Luckily for me I suck at making things in LBP. My AT-ST walker kept falling over so I deleted it. So it will save me the pain of being moderated.
It’s just one less thing for MM to moderate.
November 15th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Now, now , I beg to differ !
Your words are like timeless poetry , formed by the mind of a genius , written in the blood of a virgin by a quill crafted from an angel’s arse ..
( possible truth )
pspsamurai Says:
November 16th, 2008 at 10:43 am
*Smocks Pipe* I Concur……
November 16th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Well there’s nothing i will say about the Moderated Levels because i think you have said what we are all thing plus i value my life lol. Although i must bring this to light, have we all forgotten about the Space-SackPerson, and the Pumpkin Head, and Kratos/Nariko (well think about it, it was free), and I’m not shore of the name but there was a free animal costume with the other costumes that we have to pay for. I tell you this because it’s not right to say they gave of nothing when they gave us a lot. Also keep this in mind as much as they want us (the games/the people/the sack men&women) to have fun with in there laws of the LBP, they also want money.
cc_star Says:
November 16th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Kratos & Nariko were free because they were promoting the game, and tying to get people to pre-order, the Space & pumpkin costumes are part of 1 per week free.
This is all good and I’ll thank them for it at some point, but the underlying idea is probably a hook to get people to try the downloads, and hopefully a buy a few costumes in future, just a common business tactic really, but as they are a business, and presumably in the business of making money? then why not?
The sentiment towards the 3.99 T-Shirt is most likely (and rightly) negative because it was a ‘I was there in the first week’ in other words I rushed out and brought the game straight away, and was one of those who helped provide a quick return to the devs/publishers. I was also best by often inactive servers, and a deleted level.
For this, of all the things mentioned I would have expected the T-shirt to be free.
November 16th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Kotaku had a very interesting story releated to the LB moderation, and this is one of those levels that were deleted without any seen reason whatsever.
November 16th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
My LBP just keeps quitting to XMB after showing the rotating important information screen “!?” on loading the game. works fine on other profiles.. any suggestions. I’m working on a level that was going really well and am worried that I’m going to lose it now and have to wipe my saves. anyone else had this problem or have any ideas how to resolve this?
November 17th, 2008 at 11:02 am
I don’t see what all the fuss is about. The delay was understandable. I live in Denmark where we had the Mohammad cartoon crisis. All of Denmark is now a target for terrorists because a newspaper printed some drawings. I can understand why Sony took the complaints about the quotes seriuosly.
I didn’t experience the servers in the first week as my game took 12 days from dispath to reception. 12 days! I’ve played it every day since and the problems with the servers are fixed now.
The Week 1 T-shirt… I really can’t see why this caused such an uproar. They gave away a cool spacesuit and halloween mask for free for a limited time. Thats what they GAVE the loyal fans who got the game at launch. They then SOLD a lousy T-shirt, because they wanted it to be rare. The game sold about half a million copies in the first week and giving the T-shirt away for free wouldn’t make it rare, but selling it at a price high enough so only the hardcore fans (or idiots) would actually buy it, did. I didn’t buy the damn thing and even if it had been free my sackboy wouldn’t ever get to wear it. The free stuff is so much better including the spacesuit. (BTW the Motorstorm helmet and spacesuit combined makes a cool Sack Stig.)
The moderation. Finally an issue where the outrage is justified to some point. I really liked the interview with Geosautus because that pinpointed the problem: lack of communication. He said that he expected some kind of moderation on the GoW level but not on his other levels. So gamers should understand the need for moderation form time to time, but the moderators have to take the time to explain WHY the levels are moderated. That way people will understand it better and have a chance to fix it. I hope MM and Sony see the problems here and can get the moderation process fixed.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
This goes a lot further than Sony and LBP. There need to be drastic revisions of copyright law and a set of transnational rules that define how IP can be used. If I post a picture of a PS3 on my blog, does that mean I’m infringing copyright? If so, by whose rules am I being judged? What about ‘fair use’? And so on and on until your head spins.
I remember reading about how MacDonalds used their positioning to drive changes in the meat industry when their customers started freaking out about the conditions in meat packing facilities. Because MacDonalds is such a big player, the entire industry was forced to reform. Sony should get together with other big players in online entertainment and drive for change to the current laws and push for the implementation of a new (and separate) set of laws that covers any computer-based IP (such as user-created content, fan art and so on).
colossalblue Says:
November 19th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I don’t think it’s a good idea to let the companies that own the intellectual property determine the laws that govern it but I do think there has to be a global decision made because at the moment the answers to your questions:
“If I post a picture of a PS3 on my blog, does that mean I’m infringing copyright? If so, by whose rules am I being judged? What about ‘fair use’?
Are: Yes, you would almost certainly be infringing copyright under US law if it’s not being used for comedy or tribute purposes. UK law if it is. If it is being used to report news then it’s fine by all nation’s laws (that I know of) as long as it couldn’t be seen to be offensive. There is no such thing as “fair use” in copyright law.
I think it’s a stupid situation but that’s the law. Without a global policy you end up with one or two countries (read: China) not enforcing the laws and allowing millions of dollars worth of bootleg CDs and Rip-Off Luis Vuitton handbags out of the country. Madness.