LittleBigPlanet’s boast that you can create any level you want may now come with some caveats when it comes to copyrighted material.

As with anything that allows some degree of user creation or editing, users often jump to imitation first.

And the game has spawned its share of imitators, including an inspired God of War stage and impressive music-box levels for popular video game tunes.

Now, though, gamers are complaining that some of their levels are being deleted without warning and with no way to republish it online. Even some unpublished games have been removed as well.

Granted, Media Molecule and Sony have their concerns over copyright infringement, especially in an online environment. But, it seems they have a tendency to go a bit overboard. Instead of requesting specific copyrighted content be removed, the companies have simply taken down the whole level.

While LittleBigPlanet comes with its own set of levels, the entire selling point of the game is the immense freedom that comes with level creation. Media Molecule and Sony are essentially stripping away the only reason to buy the game and pissing off current owners while doing it.

The “infringing” levels, such as the God of War stage, don’t even really breach the source material. Because LittleBigPlanet is a platformer (and a unique one, at that, with its three planes and grabbing), levels based on God of War, Pac Man, Metal Gear Solid, and even Mario (to a certain extent) are less imitation than tribute. If anything, these levels provide some extra marketing for the games.

Beyond that, though, even references to copyrighted material are enough for a stage to be deleted. A level titled “Failure to Launch” was removed presumably because the title is the same as the Matthew McConaughey movie. What next? Will the companies restrict every title that references a movie, no matter how common the title? Soon enough, any level with “Big” in the title will have to be removed, lest an angered Tom Hanks storms in waving lawsuits.

Activision is also deleting songs based on existing songs in Guitar Hero: World Tour’s “GH Tunes” section, where gamers can post songs they’ve created with the game’s song creation tool. However, Activision has clearly stated that it would take down copyrighted songs, and it still lets users keep the song offline. 

Considering that some people spend countless hours working on these levels, permanently and silently deleting levels is kind of a dick move on Sony’s part. Speaking of which, since many of the worthwhile levels in LittleBigPlanet are now being “moderated,” it seems the game is headed away from the fun-filled creativity it promised and towards Penis Central.