God damn, what a fine mess you've made of this, Sony.

And such a shame. LBP was flying on a kite of console user created content, and while its still a fine game, all the potential copyright infringement crap is spoiling their sales and crashing what should be a more roaring party of fun gaming.

What's really insulting beyond the edits and deleting of content without warning, is that Sony seek to make money out of users created levels, while not giving up any of that money to users. You'd think they'd want to encourage creators for their efforts, and give them a cut, and even perhaps tempt some of them into game development. But alas no, a real shame.

On a related note, I really think copyright law needs some kind of adjustment, to make room for the concept of an homage to a piece of work, created by someone else. Especially if such homage levels (or other works) are not potentially making any money, why Sony fear them is beyond me. All a LBP creator should be made to do is provide a disclaimer at the start of their level, stating that 'this level is created as a homage to other works, and is intended to celebrate those works combined with new ideas of the level creator'. Surely, that should cover them from negative infringement claims.

Perhaps the future saving grace for LBP, might be the PSP version. However, I still feel that while the age of console user created content is still in its dawn, the likes of Sony have a huge amount to learn from Valve, still masters of the mod games and the mod scene.

Why are Valve so successful? Because they understand the needs of mod gamers, meet them half way and don't chastise them for their creations. Sure a different genre of game perhaps and platform, but the principle is still the same. Give them the tools, and meet them halfway. Valve will continue to be successful for this reason.

I know that a Gradius style level is quite popular on LBP, but I'm sure that if Konami are aware of it, they will look the other way, because someone out there still remembers and loves their game. The concept of an homage or fan work is quite well tolerated in japan (look at DDR and Stepmania, or countless fan works across various media, but no lawsuits are flying around), but why we still have a big problem with it in the west is beyond me. I guess the demons of fear and money, still pull the strings of some.

Anyway, good luck Sony. Such a shame to spoil a great game. Some moderation is fine, but draconian measures doing so are not.