Earlier this week, some user-created levels of LittleBigPlanet were “moderated” to the point where they didn’t actually exist anymore, seemingly without any good reason. This outraged a lot of gamers, especially the ones who spent hours creating some really awesome levels only to have them removed. Sure, we all knew that creating levels full of, um, adult content wouldn’t be appreciated by the mods, but I, for one, was surprised to see levels based on other properties—even ones belonging to Sony—taken off of the servers.

It quickly became apparent that the problem was the use of other people’s intellectual properties, but even that was a little confusing, as levels based on Mirror’s Edge and Ninja Warrior have remained live despite the moderation. After all of the commotion, Sony has finally issued some guidelines about what you can and cannot do when creating and uploading LittleBigPlanet levels:

•    Ensure that the content you share with other users is suitable for all ages - everybody has access to your level if you publish it
•    Please respect other people's intellectual property rights. For example, don't use images, brands or logos that you're not entitled to use.
•    If you come across any content that you feel the need to report, then please do it responsibly. Hoax reports will be considered inappropriate behaviour.

The “images, brands, or logos” makes treading on intellectual property a little more clear, as the most famously removed level based on God of War actually had some images from the game that the player could collect, as did levels with Gears of War and Batman themes. I’m glad that they threw in a clause about making false reports of inappropriateness, because there are a lot of jerks online who get some sort of sick pleasure from ruining the fun of others. The recent moderation hasn’t been a deal-breaker for me, as I’m still loving my time with LittleBigPlanet, but I’m glad that Sony has issued these guidelines before I published any of my own levels. Boy, my face would have been red if I published “Batman’s Gears of PenisLand” only to have it taken down.

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