There’s been a bit of a furor lately in a couple of new games which have pretty big user-generated aspects to them, namely LittleBigPlanet and Guitar Hero: World Tour. Both games are having some of their user-generated content deleted because it breaks copyright rules and hence is totally illegal and naughty and very, very bad indeed.

The thing is, is there really any harm in it? I don’t think so; see if you agree with me after the jump.

Both LBP and GH: WT have featured a huge amount of themed levels and songs, created in each game’s creation modes. Levels based on Metal Gear Solid, Mirror’s Edge and God of War have proved hugely popular in the platformer, and it’s been all too easy to find covers of commercial songs and videogame themes in World Tour’s user-created content base. Unfortunately, a lot of them are gone as both Media Molecule and Activision have taken to the servers and removed anything deemed to be infringement of copyright.

The thing is, I see this as a bit of a grey area. Making illegal copies of films, CDs and games is rated as a “Pretty Bad Thing” on my moral scales. To keep the circle going, producers give audiences products and the audience gives producers money in return, which the producers put towards new products for the audiences. So nicking this sort of thing, whether it’s digitally or physically (more of the former in this age) is a big fat no-no as far as I can see.

However, when it’s a rock rendition of the Green Hill Zone theme from Sonic or a cutesy recreation of Shadow Moses Island, I can’t really see much wrong going on here! For one, there wont be much of a profit-loss (well, okay, there wont be one at all) for any companies involved. Activision don’t sell any Sonic the Hedgehog songs and you’ll be hard-pressed to find Media Molecule selling any levels at all at the moment, never mind a Metal Gear Solid one.

The way I see it, there’s nothing horribly wrong with creating your own versions of some things in the games concerned. However, when it comes to commercial covers I suppose I can see where my argument falters a little. If a commercial song can be covered the chances are Activision would be able to put the master recording up for sale; are you going to go for the freebie or the one that’ll cost you a couple of bucks? And naturally, Activision being a company, they’ll want to smash up anything that’ll stop them making money. Hey, that’s capitalism for you.

The thing is, I’m one of ‘those’ people who like recreating things in games. As far back as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3’s Park Editor I’ve been recreating characters and places from games and I think it’s great fun. It’s never done any harm to any companies related to whatever I’m recreating and I think the same still applies to games where this sort of content can be shared online.

A post on 1UP  remarked that these sorts of games are designed to let people be “creative”, ie: by designing their own things not based on anything that already exists. The thing is, trying to recreate games and such in environments they’re not suited to is being creative; working around the constraints an environment offers (such as a 2.5 dimensional plane or, um, being able to grind everything) is a challenge and a rewarding one to beat.

With an understandable exception for some commercial songs (again, the circle of producers and audiences springs to mind) I don’t see much of a problem with creating ‘homages’ as such in games like LBP and Guitar Hero. It’ll hardly impact on the real thing’s sales (as Sackboy Mirror’s Edge is a world away from Faith’s non-stop running, vaulting and rolling) and trying to recreate what you’ve seen in one game in another is a huge creative challenge in itself.

Besides, shouldn’t game producers be proud that people like their games so much that they’re recreating them elsewhere? I’d be damn chuffed as long as it was harmless fun like this! What do you think though? Mouth off in the comments box below.

LittleBigPlanet Levels Being… / Copyrighted Songs Disappearing… – 1UP

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