Anyone remember when Marvel hit up City of Heroes way back in 2004 for copyright infringement due to certain heroes? We sure do. That’s why it’s no surprise that Marvel has once again taken to the streets in order to protest and complain about costumes being infringed upon within create-happy, LittleBigPlanet. While the recent removal of certain costumes hasn’t taken place yet within the game’s world, it has started to pop up through online galleries.
A forum member MuffinMan71 from LittleBigWorkshop.com recently received an email revealing that one of his gallery photos happened to infringe upon Marvel’s copyright for "The Thing." MuffinMan71 cleverly created a SackBoy with orange bricked skin and applied the blue swimming trunks to his character. While this wasn’t an exact replica of the superhero himself, it was close enough to warrant Marvel’s attention.
We received a notice from Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (“Marvel”) that materials that you posted on LittleBIGWorkshop.com infringe Marvel’s copyrights. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Little Big Workshop Copyright Policy, we removed and disabled access to these materials.
Please do not post these materials again to LittleBIGWorkshop.com unless you follow the counter-notification procedures outlined in the Copyright Policy and receive permission to repost the materials. The Copyright Policy can be found here. Please do not reply to this e-mail address. Please send all correspondence regarding this notice to [email protected] or to the address listed in the Copyright Policy and use the reference number contained in the subject line of this e-mail.
We appreciate your participation in the LittleBIGWorkshop community and hope that you continue to participate by sharing your inspirations and creations. Remember that you must abide by the LittleBIGWorkshop Terms of Service. Please review the Terms of Service to make sure that your continued participation abides by those terms, especially those terms addressing User Generated Content. If you upload materials that violate the Terms of Service, we may suspend or disable your access to LittleBIGWorkshop.com.
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Oddly enough, this could be a slight indication that perhaps Marvel plans to release a LittleBigPlanet costume pack, something we’d more than happily welcome to our collection of downloads. However, Marvel is missing out on a large opportunity that other companies, such as EA, are taking advantage of — free advertising.