They haven't turned it off yet! Server shutdown supposed to be on August 31, 2016!

[darkalphar]

Good news! There's a way to get online for those stuck in US region (like me). Originally another player had same issues as me of being unable to get online despite having physical disc and online pass, but he found a way that worked. I gave it a try and it worked for me as well.

 

You'll have to buy U.K. version of LBPK. It so happens that there's a PSN sale going on until April 5th, which dropped its price to £3.99 from £10.99.

https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-gb/games/littlebigplanet-karting/cid=EP9000-NPEA00421_00-GBETALITTL000001

 

Create an U.K. account. Google for info on how to do that, and you'll need a valid email address that Sony can verify, and not registered with any of PSN accounts you have. You'll also need a U.K. £ PSN card to redeem to pay for the game. A good place to buy one is at Play-Asia.com, which has digital version of £5 card which you'll receive code within your account almost immediately. Redeem that on your new U.K. account and buy the game and download it (it's a 14GB file so you'll need about 30GB of free space). Make sure to start the game once in order to update the game to the latest version. 

 

Once all that's done, you can switch back to your original PSN account and play the game and be able to connect online. As long as you do not delete your U.K. User account on PS3 you can play the U.K. version of game. Just be aware that none of your USA LBPK data (both physical and digital version) will import over to the U.K. version so you'll be starting over on that format, although you'll be able to access online community levels once you finish the tutorial course.