LittleBigProblem *Updated*
October 17th, 2008I have to admit that I’m more than a little confused about the news that LittleBigPlanet is being delayed because they licensed music that contains “expressions that can be found in the Qu’ran”. And… nothing. They offer no explanation as to why this would prevent the game’s release. They simply say that they are taking “immediate action to rectify this.” What exactly are they “rectifying”?
I thought… maybe there’s a copyright dispute? But I’m pretty sure that the Qu’ran isn’t copyrighted, and they certainly don’t make any mention of what exactly the issue is that some background music happens to quote “expressions” from the Qu’ran. The only other explanation I can think of would be that the “expressions” were actually pushing a religious message, but if that’s the case, Sony certainly hasn’t made that clear.
Sony says that they “apologise for any offence this may have caused,” but I think the fact that they’re actually delaying a game for seemingly no other reason that some background music contains some unidentified passages from the Qu’ran. That’s some nice PR work there, Sony.
*Update*
Kotaku has the offending “expressions” that caused the game to get delayed:
1- In the 18th second: “كل نفس ذائقة الموت” (”kollo nafsin tha’iqatol mawt”, literally: ‘Every soul shall have the taste of death’).
2- Almost immediately after, in the 27th second: “كل من عليها فان” (”kollo man alaiha fan”, literally: ‘All that is on earth will perish’).
Does this justify the recall? Perhaps it seems slightly more reasonable with this… having a message about dying in a sort of happy, family game like LittleBigPlanet may not really mesh well. On the other hand, it’s not so much a religious message as much as it is sort of a depressing one. I think Sony could’ve done a much better job explaining this rather than just saying that they needed to remove them because they were in the Qu’ran.
Posted in Business, Idiocy, Industry, Jeff |
October 18th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
the only thing that irks me is that muslim guy who said ” We find offensive mixing pop music with quran quotes”
um….we? No, it’s YOU and muslims who think like you who choose to get sensitive and offended. Not all muslims. I despise people who generalize an entire group like that, even if it’s their own group.
October 20th, 2008 at 3:58 am
The reason they pulled it is because Muslims find it offensive that their holy text is used in music or a video game. SONY have a big worldwide audience and large portion of them would be Christian and Muslim because of the sizes of those faiths. This would be the same as depicting and shooting Jesus in a game - i.e. insensitive and while the developers and publishers weren’t forced to recall and change that music, they obviously felt that it was a sensitive issue and did so anyway. I think, for the sake of a couple of weeks that it’s not really a problem. Going forward though i believe that religious groups have to become more moderate in their interactions with those outside of their beliefs.
Personally i wouldn’t be offended in this case but then i’m quite a liberal person and not Muslim.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Just realised that my last sentence is badly worded. That should read: “I’m quite a liberal person and i’m also not a Muslim.