LittleBigPlanet to feature personal 'copyright' system

by Ludwig Kietzmann { Aug 26th 2008 at 4:30PM }

We love it when games like Soul Calibur IV challenge us to add a personal touch to our favorite pastime, whether it be in creating our own fighters or stitching together a brand new level. But if there's anything this bounty of creative tools and user-generated content has shown us, it's that people aren't very original. When they're done recreating all of Nintendo's intellectual properties, they'll likely start copying, editing and spreading all of your creations too. They must be stopped!

Thankfully, the PlayStation 3's impossibly cute platformer, LittleBigPlanet, will feature its own "copyright" system for user-generated items. "You can basically dictate the distribution rights on any object you create," Media Molecule's Alex Evans tells Eurogamer. "If you put something in your level as a collectable item, people can collect it. People can control who comes into the level, both by how hard it is and by giving away keys, but you can also choose whether to copyright that object."

Items sans copyright can be modified and shared with wild abandon (perfect for the inevitable penises!), while those cherished by the creator must be collected and remain within the confines of the user's level. Which is probably just a recreation of Super Mario Bros. World 1-1 anyway.

Tags: Copyright, LBP, LittleBigPlanet, Media-Molecule, Platformer, User-generated-content

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

syrik zero @ Aug 26th 2008 4:37PM

That sounds weird. So who ever makes the first penis can copyright it and no one else can ever make one? =( I have to get this game first!

Curmeo @ Aug 26th 2008 4:40PM

no, your penis will stay with you and my penis will stay with me. or do you want other people's pen...nevermind.

syrik zero @ Aug 26th 2008 4:43PM

We can share =)

syrik zero @ Aug 26th 2008 4:43PM

Gayest comment of the year?

Noshino @ Aug 26th 2008 4:45PM

not close, just wait for samfish...

SuperGayParade @ Aug 26th 2008 4:56PM

What? Did somebody say penises?

Marty @ Aug 26th 2008 4:58PM

Please. It's penii.

samfish @ Aug 26th 2008 5:07PM

I know exactly where I'm gonna put ALL your penises.

monkey3 @ Aug 26th 2008 10:39PM

Sorry marty, the "i" pluralization is only for words that end in "us" (focus - foci, etc). therefore, "penis" is pluralized "penises"

Jody Anthony (gamertag and psn: JodyAnthony) @ Aug 26th 2008 5:26PM

I believe the correct term is LittleBigPenis

Maverick Saturn @ Aug 26th 2008 5:27PM

Well I'll be copyrighting the roller coaster track, tough luck bitches :D

Maverick Saturn @ Aug 26th 2008 5:30PM

Besides, someone (undoubtedly) will moan about your penis violating the tos blah blah blah, bloody rule abiding @!"£$, and (undoubtedly) it will get taken off and you (undoubtedly) will recieve a warning or ban while the little moaning baby sits there with a smug look on his face thinking "Yay, I did a good deed" ¬_¬

BananaBoat @ Aug 26th 2008 6:09PM

I hope I get a trophy for penis collecting.

Marty @ Aug 26th 2008 6:23PM

@monkey3 - Spy's sappin' your sense of humor

syrik zero @ Aug 26th 2008 8:54PM

Hey Monkey, my real first name is Marcus. If there are two of us in a room are we Marci?

monkey3 @ Aug 26th 2008 10:44PM

@syrik. technically yes, but only if someone was referring to all of you as a whole, rather than each individual Marcus.

Tiptup300 @ Aug 27th 2008 1:20AM

No Teste love?

Lars @ Aug 26th 2008 4:38PM

Cool. Just like Second Life does.

Marty @ Aug 26th 2008 5:01PM

Except for you won't have anywhere near the power that Second Life has for creating what you want to create.

Maverick Saturn @ Aug 26th 2008 5:32PM

Nope, your right, you should in fact have more.

copa @ Aug 26th 2008 4:39PM

Game.

Of.

The.

Year.

Curmeo @ Aug 26th 2008 4:46PM

agreed. even with MGS4, you just know LBP is gonna be HUGE. and the game even has a playa' on the far left. you cant see his left hand, he's tryin to get busy with the girl next to him =)

Marty @ Aug 26th 2008 4:58PM

Doubtful.

Autopsy15 @ Aug 26th 2008 5:39PM

Shun the non-believer! Shhhhhuuuunnnnanannaaannaaan...

el serpiente @ Aug 26th 2008 10:31PM

Marty has been appointed by Bill Gates as the captain of the official Joystiq LBP-hater brigade. Good job soldier, keep up this important work.

domgbrown @ Aug 26th 2008 4:47PM

I'm embarrassed to admit that I still don't get this game although I am very excited about it due to this site. I understand that you can create your own levels, and that sounds fun to play around with, but as a serious game, I don't get it. I guess the user generated levels will be amazing and I'll have to play it to appreciate it.

Hyams @ Aug 26th 2008 5:06PM

It's a 2D platformer.

Think old school Mario, take away the jumping on enemies to kill them, add physics-based gameplay, and you basically have what LBP will play like.

You also have a very flexible and easy to use level and content creator. The game will come with 60 pre-made levels though, so don't think you'll have to make all the levels yourself.

There's also up to four player co-op, online or offline, or mixed.

domgbrown @ Aug 26th 2008 5:30PM

I think I'll just have to play it. I understand it's a mulitplayer 2D platformer. It just doesn't sound as fun as I hope it will be. It does sound like the perfect game to get my fiance to spend some video game time with me, though.

Bass Masterson @ Aug 26th 2008 6:21PM

Basically, the whole world has fallen out of love with actual games and now wants minigames. That's why Braid is a success, why Everyday Shooter and Geometry Wars were successes, and why this will probably succeed. Minigames and gimmicks, that's what the people want.

Vidikron (FU) @ Aug 26th 2008 6:52PM

@Bass

Your examples don't really make much sense. The games you mentioned as examples of "mini games" are much deeper than the type of games people are usually talking about when discussing mini games.

Sora @ Aug 26th 2008 10:59PM

Braid a minigame? Unless you were referring to length, explain to me how a 2d platformer with a deep plot is a minigame? Does that make Super Mario Bros a minigame?

343 Guilty Fart @ Aug 26th 2008 4:50PM

Maybe I've just been keeping up with the LBP news more than the 'stiq, but I know they talked about this feature at least 6 months ago.

j.howlett @ Aug 26th 2008 4:56PM

i'll be sure to copyright my littlebig cardboard box and sackboy eye

Happy_man @ Aug 26th 2008 5:39PM

I'll be sure to copyright my eyesack :)

E.J. @ Aug 26th 2008 5:47PM

I wasn't gonna comment on this post, but I just can't help it:

PENIS.

That is all.

totoro @ Aug 26th 2008 6:07PM

This game just sounds more and more wonderful.

Still not sure if its going to be the-word-of-mouth-blockbuster title for the PS3, or one of those ICO-SoTC-Okami true fans only kinda thing, though.

BananaBoat @ Aug 26th 2008 6:16PM

Ico and SOTC sold as poorly as they did because Sony didn't have any sort of marketing for them. I guarantee you that Sony is going to come out with a gigantic marketing push for Little Big Planet. Not only that, but they are making sackboy somewhat of a Sony mascot, so the game is going to be all over the place.

I'd bet money on a TON of people buying PS3's just to play Little Big Planet. Sony is pretty much counting on it. It's probably going to outsell Ico by a factor of 100.

Spud27 @ Aug 26th 2008 6:37PM

I'm not saying LBP isn't going to do well, but I don't think it's going to be the big blockbuster that Sony thinks it will. As someone who works in video game retail, it doesn't seem like too many customers seem that interested in the game. While it will do better than Ico and SOTC, mainly because of the previous statement that the universe is now infatuated crappy mini games (see Nintendo Wii), it just isn't that big a game.

Working at Gamestop for far longer than I'd like to admit, I've seen games like MGS, God of War, Halo, Gears, Zelda, Mario etc, with pre-orders through the roof. No surprise, they sell a lot of copies and are the cash cows for their respective companies. I think my store has two copies of LBP reserved so far. Like I said before, it will sell, but it's not going to be the system seller that Sony is looking for.

BananaBoat @ Aug 26th 2008 10:17PM

Normally when core gamers pre-order something, they either think that the game is going to be sold out, or they see a great pre-order offer (like free *whatever* with pre-order). In the case of Little Big Planet, the pre-order bonus is a sack boy that looks like Kratos (which I assume most people don't care about)

Sony is expecting LBP to be a huge hit with non-traditional gamers, and even without them, most "hardcore" gamers have already decided that they'll be buying LBP on day one.

It's hard to imagine a scenario where everyone that is so excited for the game, just doesn't buy it. That said, LBP won't get to the level of a Halo 3 or GTAIV, because the PS3 market is much smaller than the 360's market (or in GTA IV's case, both 360 and PS3's markets combined) but it should still be in the top 3 selling games of the year on the PS3.

Also, I feel for you, working at the evil empire. Asking people to pre-order crap and if they want a magazine all day long has got to be soul destroying.

BananaBoat @ Aug 26th 2008 6:13PM

They're playing a dangerous game, referring to it as "Copyright". I'd be extremely surprised if they allowed you any actual copyright on anything you made (In the legal sense). This is more like a permissions system more than anything, where you can make something and set it to "public" "private" "Friends only" etc. You don't actually have any claim if, say, your friend came over and set the permissions to "public" real quick, and then downloaded it on his Xbox etc.

I'm sure the licensing agreement is really thick if you want to sell any content you've created inside LBP. Something along the lines of "You don't own what you made, and you get to sell it be the grace of us not being dicks" written into the contract you'd have to sign.

Can't wait till the game comes out....Gaahhhh

j.howlett @ Aug 26th 2008 10:19PM

the situation you describe is impossible. it's not on the xbox silly

BananaBoat @ Aug 27th 2008 1:24AM

I guess it's kinda like how old people refer to any game console as "the nintendo"

Dagnabbit, GET OFF OF MY LAWN!

=Curve= @ Aug 26th 2008 7:46PM

I hope this doesn't get abused. We have patent trolls, we don't need copyright trolls.

Though couldn't you make almost the exact same thing as a copyrighted object, and take no copyright on it?

Psaakyrn @ Aug 26th 2008 10:30PM

According to US legislation, all user works are copyrighted automatically to begin with, so I don't see anything new.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Aug 27th 2008 2:47AM

Beware Orphan Works.

Psaakyrn @ Aug 27th 2008 2:38PM

The legislation isn't confirmed yet, hence the statements are still true.

Check the user agreement again when the works are out.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Aug 27th 2008 2:47AM

I've always thought that it'd be somewhat like Spore, meaning that everyone would just share around because that'd be the whole point of it.

I guess it's a wise move though because people should be entitled with the right to do what they want with their creations.