Sony delays game over offensive music

What the heck is this story about? Who is being offended and by what?

UUUUHHHH?????

They're afraid of Muslim radicals being offended, just like many were angry about the Mohammed cartoons a while back. Personally, I think it is bending too far. If we alter our actions because of fear (in this case, of protests and violent reprisal) then, to use an oft-misused phrase, "the terrorists have won."

The Little Big Planet issues, arose from 2 verses of the Qur'an, being set to music on an African themed level in Little Big Planet.  According to Muslim law, it's forbidden to set Qur'anic Verse to music.

The two verses were:

"Every soul shall taste of death" and "All that is on Earth shall perish."

Now, those two verses aren't exactly child friendly. But, here's my take.

I disagree with the recall on many…many levels. Of course, this has to do with more world politics, than it does Sony's business model. So, that could be a reason for the difference of opinion. (This was Sony's call, a Japanese company)

First and foremost, my beliefs are my own. Your beliefs are your own. As long as what you do, doesn't interfere with my life. We're good to go. Once you step in, and forcefully inject your religious (or any views for that matter) views into my world. That's where things will most certainly fall apart. I do not care what God you believe in, I do not care what your government believes in. I'm a sentient being, capable of performing thought on my own. And having someone step in, and make decisions for me, is plain insulting.

Additionally, this whole sensitivity towards Islam, is getting absolutely absurd, and will no doubt cause another series of embassy burnings, and rioting, when the next 'hot topic Muslim beef' doesn't receive the same reaction. Anyone remember the caricatures of Mohammed? I'm sure Denmark does.

So, a few points i'd like to make, if the ESRB had gotten this game back, and knew fully well about the two verses. Would the rating be changed?

Why was there no move from Sony to alter Resistance:Fall of Man, when the Church of England (an admittedly larger constituency than….the LBP playing muslims of the world), requested that Manchester Abbey, be removed from one of the levels?

Why is Sony going forward with 'Fat Princess' even though many many many overweight females have voiced opposition to the game.

Did Sony weigh the environmental impact, of tossing several million blu-ray discs, before making this decision? When does a small hardcore minority of a religious sect, take the back seat to a more important environmental concern?

Lastly, when did it become ok for an individual, who obtained a copy of a game, early, to complain about said game? This person, had a retail copy of the game, and was playing it with his friends…no less than 5 days prior to launch. How did he get this? How did his friends get this? What would've happened, had the game just launch…as normal, without people who can't follow rules, ruining everyone elses fun?

Go ahead, patch the game, remove the 'offensive' content. But, the person who sent to complaint should be banned from the PSN for life, for illegally obtaining a copy of a full version of a game, before it's launch, and ultimately leading to it's delay to the rest of the world. And remember…the majority of the world, nor the majority of PS3 owners, are Muslim. They need to understand, and appreciate that things aren't always going to go their way. Muslim law, does not rule the world. Nor should any religion.

Oh, and by the way, the two verses, were part of a song that received an Emmy for the artist who sang it.

BM

They're afraid of Muslim radicals being offended, just like many were angry about the Mohammed cartoons a while back. Personally, I think it is bending too far. If we alter our actions because of fear (in this case, of protests and violent reprisal) then, to use an oft-misused phrase, "the terrorists have won."

I don't care if this offends some towel wearing muslim. This is MY country and if they don't like it they can go back to their sand dune. America has become way too tolerant of other people, who are not tolerant of Americans.

They're afraid of Muslim protests like there were for the Mohammed cartoons. Personally, I think it's bending too far. If we base our actions out of fear, then, to use an oft-quoted phrase, "the terrorists have won."

are you kidding me why do these people follow a cult that seems to find everything about itself  offensive its disgusting that the whole world should live in fear of mulslim cry babys

What the hell is the story about?

What lousy reporting.. who is being offended, and what words? We use words out of the Bible, the Pentatuch, and the Talmud. Whats the deal? We can quote Budha. What gives?

Whats the article about? There's no point to the article. Who is being offended by what? WE can quote from Buddha, the Bible, the Pentatuch etc, but not the Muslim book. ?

why do you guys get all freaked out every time the muslims protest against something that is forbidden in their religion? why do you protest again basic human decency and respect when, and if at all, shown by responsible individuals? why do you guys always want to confront everything like bullies? 

first of all your way of reacting is very indicative of your ignorance, yes ignorance, I don't have to be nice I am not running for office.  you clearly don't care about the removal or the censorship of the verse, you simply want an opportunity to spew your hatred

did it really affect you as a person if a song (you never heard of and you know nothing about) containing quranic verses was removed? the funny part is, if the song was left in the game, you guys would have complained about it and how it offended you (although based on some replies, you don't seem to be sony players in the first place).  in fact, your anticipated overreaction was probably the main reason sony removed or altered the song in the first place. it sure as hell didn't do it because it didn't want to offend muslims

so in a nutshell, if you want to preach to people the concept of live and let live, then you shouldn't be offended by a group of individuals who request that their religion dictated beliefs be respected.  secondly, on a quick note, islam is not a minority religion, even if you meant it in the context of sony product ownership.  in fact sony is one of the most famous products in the world and especially the muslim/arab world

yes I am an atheist of muslim background, what I think of islam, all other or any religion is my personal business, it does not give me the right to do things "publicly" to purposely offend other religions.  I also don't have much respect for others who do so.  so if you want things to change, you need to be tolerant not confrontational, you need to be patient and most importantly you need to be intelligent enough to communicate your point of views without inciting negative reactions.  your replies show no such characteristics so good luck in your endeavor (whatever that may be) and I sincerely thank your ignorance and its role in slowing down the progress.

I think it is high time for muslims to stop reacting to such things that could very easily be miss-interpreted in the first place, but to put it in context it is "higher time" for those who preach enlightment to be actually enlightened... you don't put out fire with fire...

muslims suck! period. Stop licking their a**.

I love being an American.

Our passion for innovation has opened worlds that one never knew even existed, in science and beyond. Our tolerance and compassion for humanity has bridged paths and created safe heavens for those that were oppressed elsewhere in the world. I believe in tolerance and understanding on all levels, yet how can one tolerate a religion such as Islam that is fundamentally organized upon creeds of intolerance and reprimands for open thought, and with the "noble goal" of destroying all other religions or forms of thought on this earth?

Our tolerance has been one of our greatest strengths, but allowing such a religion to infiltrate our society and way of thought seems to me synonymous to injecting one with the HIV virus, or knowingly opening the gates for a lethal Trojan Horse. Those verses could be found anywhere else and it wouldn’t be a problem...but watch out if somehow they appear in the Quran because then it becomes an issue of blasphemy. Why are we so tolerant and complacent to a religion who is motivated by intolerance and vouched to restricting human reason in all possible ways.?

the story is about being afraid of offending the muslims.  and in answer to why do we "freak out" over this issue?  maybe it's because of the radical islamic groups that VOW TO FREAKIN KILL ANYONE THAT DARES MUMBLE OR QUESTION THEM!!!!!!!

Was there a strong protest regarding the original music being licensed when it was released? I don't know the artist or the song and have no idea what reception the original rendition received. Just curious...

I don't understand the objection to the music in this video game based solely on two references to Quran phrases.  Were those phrases objectionable to any other group?  The writer of this story (or editor) failed to provide adequate information.  

I might add, by the way, that a few Muslim scholars have stated this is a perceived Law, it is not stated anywhere in the Quran.

For those who care:

http://www.submission.org/music.html

BM

And for those still confused by where this originated, the original complaint was filed by a gamer, on behalf of a group of Muslim gamers on a forum located here:

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:BuPMgf6T4UIJ:community.eu.playstation.com/playstationeu/board/message%3Fboard.id%3D611%26message.id%3D8388+%22tapha+Niang%22+quran&hl=da&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=dk

And here's the artist who wrote the song, defending the song:

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/21/little-big-planet-musician-defends-song-to-mtv/

Any more requests?

BM

Here are my thoughts

Sony made a very good business decision with pulling the Soundtrack of a song in the Little Big Planet game, the song contained versus from the Holy Quran and while the theological arguments for allowing or disallowing this are open for interpretations as to under what conditions is this acceptable and by how much, I will leave this particular bit of our discussion for later in the post and focus on the following:

1. Why Did Sony Do this?
2. Why do Muslims find this offensive?
3. What is a devout Muslim and who gets to say he is devout or not?

So why did Sony do this?
Every company that launches products has a process for vetting the product in the final stages for any thing that could jeopardize the product’s success. I am not sure if Sony deliberately included Muslim gamers in the testing stage or not, but this was the case and having a Muslim tester just saved them a lot of money.

In my humble opinion, this move by Sony probably saved sales of the game in the Muslim world if not increased it and also saved Sony millions of dollars in bad PR and potentially a billion or two in potential boycotts of Sony products. Now is not the time to throw away a couple of billion dollars away because of a soundtrack. I mean, have you seen the stock market lately?

Sony was very astute and business savvy about this because the Middle East and particularly the gulf market which happens to be the center of the Islamic world is not in a credit crisis. There is good money to be made in the Middle East market for Sony’s Computer Entertainment Division and many other Sony divisions. in fact, Sony is THE MOST HIGHLY RESPECTED brand in the middle east so to release a game that contains material that is inflammatory and morally repugnant to the feeling of their customers in the region is to commit commercial suicide in that region.

Not to mention the near certain backlash against Sony by Religious figures, Zealots, fundamentalist and yes, even the terrorists who are just itching for an excuse.
To keep the soundtrack would not have added any value to Sony’s product in more lucrative markets like the USA and EU and to remove it would allow Sony to appear as a company of values and strike a master branding stroke in the middle east and the Islamic world. Last time I checked there was at least a Billion or more of us Muslims out there and some of us have money to spend. So those of us that have that money can and will certainly pull our weight around when it comes to our buying decisions.

Read if you will about the effects of the Boycott of Danish Products after the famous Danish cartoon incident. I still don’t buy Danish products, even though it was a classic case of misunderstanding, but my money is one of the many ways that I choose to make a point.

For Sony to remove the soundtrack would have surely caused some bleeding hearts to cry the beloved freedom of speech, but as they always do, they will cry a little bit more and then eventually they will STFU. This is classic Game theory exercised by Sony’s Gaming division.

So Why Do Muslims find this offensive and many other things, can’t they lighten up?
All Muslims agree on two things and two things only. God and his messenger Mohammad. Everything else is secondary to Muslims. The first thing that a person does when he becomes a Muslim is to proclaim that there is no God but God and that Muhammad is his final prophet.
This is the thing that keeps a muslim holding on to Islam is the knowledge that so long as they acknowledge this fact and don’t take it lightly, they will not go to hell for eternity. I have met Muslims that were drunk at a bar surrounded by Hotties destined to get nailed that night, yet those same players, got into a bar fight because someone disrespected the messenger of Islam.
I have known people that have no problem visiting brothels seeking the companionship of prostitutes, yet they staunchly stick to a schedule of enjoying the company of prostitutes so long as there is no call for prayer heard, effectively limiting their whoring hours to between the Isha Prayer and the Fajr Prayer.
It’s complicated to understand how deeply rooted this belief is in Muslims, it almost becomes part of our Mental DNA “if there is such a thing”. The minute we let go of this simple fact, we get lost, and I again have met many people that took the proclamation of Islam lightly, only to loose their faith later on.

Yes, yes, but why is music accompanied by Quraan considered offensive?
Quraan to us Muslim folks is the word of God, and the God we believe in specifically asked us to read it and recite it in a certain way, not any other way.
The God we believe in ordered us to be of clean body and mind when we recite the Quraan.
The God we believe in ordered us to stay away from any sins when reciting the Quraan and preferably even after reading the Quraan.
Music according to some muslim scholars is considered a sin and judging by the way pop music has been transformed lately into some form of soft porn accompanied by recycled music, I don’t blame them.
Even the most liberal of Muslim scholars have reservations about music and view it as a means to an end, i.e: if the Music is used to convey a bad message, then the music is bad, if it used to convey a good message then the music is good. Much like TV which can broadcast PBS as well as Debbie Does Dallas.
Music and Quraan, therefore are from the points of view of Muslim Scholars and accordingly the majority of Muslims who highly regard those scholars is at best Mixing the word of God with a SIN or mixing the word of God with something that is probably a SIN. Our mind goes like this “If I let myself  commit a sin on this very simple fundamental task, If I let this one go…can I really call myself a Muslim? And what will come next if I let this one slide?”.

Some of the more spirited Muslims take matters into their own hands bypassing local laws, context and even their own scholar and beat and even kill those that offend God and His messenger. Case in point the Dutch movie Maker that was killed after he made a movie mocking Islam.

And lets not even talk about the fact that this is a video game. which does not lend itself naturally to listening to God’s words.

I will stop now as I think I have raised enough points to indicate to the reader that this is not something to be taken lightly by Muslims.
Now, some may ask, the musician who wrote the song claims he is a devout Muslim. I don’t know him enough to say he is or isn’t. But from the audio clip I heard and what I read about the matter on this link and many other links around the web, the song which contained verses from the Quraan seemed like some sort of religious sermon of some sort (Listen to it here), which is quite common in that part of the world.

But like I said, I don’t know the lyrics and the only words I got from the soundtrack were the famous “Each soul shall taste death” and “All that on the earth shall perish”. Both verses will be taken by idiots as indications that Islam is a religion of death when in fact in both verses, God speak to the humans reminding them of the futility of pride and vanity and the quest for wealth when all things eventually perish. I would try to explain things to those people but I don’t have much time. So I move on.
To tell you the truth, the Soundtrack didn’t strike me as offensive, but I will reserve judgment till I had someone who can speak the non-arabic language explain it to me.

What is a devout Muslim and who gets to say he is devout or not?
I will answer that question in an essay about Human imperfection which I’m still not fully satisfied with enough to publish, but I’m getting close. Meanwhile, lets just say that a devout Muslim is a Muslim that adheres to a certain way of practicing Islam be they Sunni, Shia or whatever.
The problem is, there are many ways to interpret Islam, many schools of thought. Some have more merit than others, some have more scientific foundations and some more philosophical. What is clear though, is that no devout Muslim would do something against the foundation of his religion, all sins that are acceptable to him are sins of human nature, love, lust, greed, jealousy. The most serious sin to him is the sin of the denouncing God.

So for that Artist, and before we pass judgment, A figure of authority entrusted with the powers to question people (A Judge presiding over a court in an area where the aleged offence took place) must ask him this:

“Sir, in your understanding of Islam, do you think that this soundtrack is appropriate? Do you have evidence to support your case?”

And most importantly, we must understand jurisdiction, there are places where an answer to that question with a “Hell Yeah…It’s appropriate” would grant you an immediate “Off with your head” Death sentence and there are other places where that same answer would lead to the person being hailed as a reformer, a pioneer, a hero. So, it’s all about jurisdiction.

Now, on to the real reason why I blogged about this minor business decision that made gamers mad because their game was going to be delayed by a week or two and the Hypocritical freedom of speech advocates out there.
Ask yourself:  Is Freedom of speech a universal right guaranteed to all? If it is, then we should give equal air time to religious figures no matter how much the atheist disagree with them. To the homosexual no matter how much the straights disagree with them and to the pacifist as well as the terrorists. As you can see, it gets messy if we make it a universal right. It’s not even a right, let alone universal.

Freedom of speech is not sacred, if it was, you wouldn’t have governments that claim to be a beacon to the free world government moderate freedoms of speech with the purpose of protecting the sacred freedoms of speech.

Freedom of speech or freedom/liberty for that matter is not a right, it’s a condition. It’s the ability to exercise your will without fear of retribution. Your freedom is not a fixed thing, it is as changing as the human condition. You are free to smoke pot in Amsterdam, but you are not in Dubai. Your freedoms change with your surrounding.

We sometimes forget that those those that fought for what we think is freedom of Speech and liberty, were in reality where fighting to change the accepted norms for what is considered freedom or liberty. Freedom is a feeling you have when you think there are no barriers. It’s not a right, it’s not sacred. It’s the human condition being expressed in a certain way.
There were people that spent all their lives in Jail but were in their minds more free than their captors.
From your side of the fence if you are not a muslim reading this, I remind you of Freeborn John of England, if you’re an American, I remind you of nearly all the Englishmen that lived in the American colonies that decided that their conditions of freedom under the British crown were not suitable.

For the muslim reading this I remind you of Imam Ahmad bin hanbal who was imprisoned for what we can call today freedom of religious speech, for opposing the government’s form of religious rhetoric. And of the one man who stood against all powers surrounding him fighting for the rights of man, women, abolition of slavery, enlightenment and peace and even war when war was necessary.
Sala Allahu Alaika Ya Rasool Allah.

I'm not going to post a link to my blog about this, Just put the text in there. Have fun everyone.

We live in a country full of pussies and cowards.  That is why everything has to be tailor-made so it doesn't offend the muslims.  People are scared to death of these extremists, and it's because america has been demasculinized for the last 25 years.  The modern philosophy is, "oh no, someone might hurt me if I do this so I'm going to do everything necessary to suck up to these people so they don't beat me up".  Where have america's balls gone?  It's ok to offend all the other religions, but let's not offend anyone who might show some hostility.  I guess if we all crouch down in the corner and suck our thumbs long enough, all the meanies will go away.