If character creation tools are guilty of anything, it’s giving people the chance to be unoriginal. As I’ve already confessed in my Soulcalibur IV review, I’ve hardly been creative when it came to messing with the character creation mode, having not only made characters from Assassin’s Creed and Devil May Cry (and, er, Mr. T) but since writing the review I’ve perfected my Solid Snake (both young and old) and a very, very feminine Metal Gear Solid 2 Raiden, complete with unbearably whiny voice.

Of course, occasionally people come up with real gems of original user-created content, and they’re all lovely. Who’s to say they wont be stolen either? LittleBigPlanet’s got the answer, with details after the jump.

According to Eurogamer, (and in turn, according to Joystiq: these crazy sites and their trackbacks!) LittleBigPlanet will include various copyright controls, to use the term very loosely. While not strictly being ‘copyright’ controls in the legal sense of things (ie: you can’t legally register your level designs as copyrighted content) they will allow you to retain some kind of control over your creations and the items that you scatter throughout them.

On any objects you create (for example: vehicles or structures, or those sorts of things; you get the idea) you can impose limitations on how these objects are spread; your own self-imposed distribution rights, if you will. This means that you can categorize objects as “collectible,” so that people can take it from your level and use it for themselves, but at the same time you can make it limited so that people can’t spread it around themselves, passing it off as their own work, but only collect it and use it personally.

However, if an item isn’t ‘copyright’-restricted (in LBP terms) then it can be nicked from your level and messed about with to a user’s heart’s content. It means everything can be as limited or as unrestricted as you like, and means that if you make something that’s a pretty piece of work, you can guarantee that it wont be nicked be others in an instant. If anything, somebody might just attempt to duplicate it for themselves and fail horrendously. Much like my Soulcalibur Raiden then.

LittleBigPlanet to feature personal ‘copyright’ system - Joystiq

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