Google's ears must be ringing because the House of Commons seems to be saying its name a lot this week. Ministers in the UK are arguing over Google's supposed influence in UK copyright policy.

Pete Wishart, a Scottish MP from Perth, took to the floor earlier in the week to give online rights groups and companies like Google a piece of his mind. Ars Technica has a great news story chronicling the exchange among lawmakers. First up is MP Wishart:

Apple is apparently cracking down on applications that they consider to be clones of other popular apps on its App Store. Evidence of such a crackdown comes from web site VideoGameWriters, who noted that one particular app developer - who is fond of using "familiar titles" for his apps - seems to have less of them available on the APP Store today.

According to a Touch Arcade forum user, a company has been offering to boost the ranking of free apps using bots on Apple's App Store. According to a user named "walterkaman," the unnamed company will set up automated and repeated downloads of a client's app in order to push it into Apple's Top Free charts. While the company was not named and the story has - as of yet - remained unverified, it has caught the attention of Apple.

Those who have data on MegaUpload and were concerned that it might get deleted on Thursday by the companies that facilitate the site's storage get some good news this morning - the data has been given a slight extension. And on a related note, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has begun a campaign this week to get "innocent users" of MegaUpload’s service to get in touch with them to explore possible legal measures for retrieving their data. MegaUpload’s online storage service was shut down by U.S. law enforcement earlier this month.

The internet certainly isn’t wanting for videos that focus on the particulars of why legislation like SOPA and PIPA are unmitigated piles of horse dung.  Heck, this week’s Extra Credits episode is just such a video.

But if you’d like to see something a little different, check out the latest Game OverThinker episode in which Bob Chipman, better known as MovieBob over at The Escapist, forecasts what our post-SOPA futures might look like.

Story time!

Last month, musician Dan Bull rapped his thoughts about SOPA in a YouTube video called SOPA Cabana (you should watch it.  It’s really well done).  This video went viral and racked up over a million views.  As it happens, it was through this video that most people discovered Dan’s second album, Face, which he offered for free on Megaupload.

Yeah, I think you see where this is going.

CD Projekt, the oft-admired developer and publisher known for The Witcher series and its cool stance on offering DRM-free products to its customers, fell from the community's grace in December. A story surfaced that the company was using a copyright trolling law firm in Germany to send demand letters to people who had been identified as having illegally downloaded The Witcher 2. The company said at the time that it did this because, while it was all for offering its products without copyright protection, it did not support its games being pirated.

California has launched a new eCrime unit to combat various online crimes. The new law enforcement unit created by California Attorney General Kamala Harris and announced Tuesday, aims take on various "cyber crimes" such as email scams, online fraud, piracy, child pornography, and real-world theft of computer gear by organized crime.

"Today's criminals increasingly use the Internet, smartphones, and other digital devices to victimize people online and offline," Harris said while unveiling the unit in the Silicon Valley city of San Jose.

A TorrentFreak report asserts that CD Projekt has hired a law firm in Germany to go after those who downloaded DRM-free copies of The Witcher 2 - even as it extolled the virtues of its games being DRM-free. CD Projekt was not available for comment at the time of this writing due to the late hour in its home country of Poland - but we hope to bring you an official response to this story as soon as it becomes available.

While we're likely not going to post every letter we get from readers who receive some sort of response from their elected representatives concerning SOPA and Protect IP, the following response received by ECA president Hal Halpin from congressmen Jim Himes (D- Connecticut’s 4th District) is worth reading - only because it strikes a balance between thinking free speech and rights (like due process and fair use) should be protected with copyright holders' interests.

Anti-virus and security software maker Kaspersky is not happy with the Business Software Alliance's early support of SOPA and Protect IP in the U.S. Even though the BSA later walked back its support of SOPA, the Russian firm has had enough. It announced that it plans to leave the BSA over its support for SOPA. Kaspersky has announced that on January 1st 2012 it will withdraw its membership of the BSA.

While the United States has groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation to fight against unfair copyright law and government encroachment on internet freedoms, Canada has the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC for short). CIPPIC will be making oral arguments in what it calls the "Copyright Pentology" - five copyright cases that the Supreme Court of Canada will hear from December 6-7.

Left-leaning political blog DailyKOS joins the editorial pages of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times in opposition of the House's Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate's Protect IP Act. In a post titled "Congress is close to destroying the internet (no hyperbole)," DailyKOS says that it is not hyperbole when they say that lawmakers, big Pharmaceutical companies, and the recording, and movie industries are out to destroy the internet.

While Americans were enjoying Thanksgiving last Thursday Australia's Internet service providers held a meeting to come to a consensus on how to deal with illegal file-sharing in the country.

Righthaven, the group that was trying to earn a living by suing websites for using the news stories and images of its clients (which included several Las Vegas Newspapers) has found itself on the wrong side of the law this week. The US Marshal for the District of Nevada has been authorized by a federal court to use "reasonable force" to seize the $63,720.80 in cash and/or assets after the company failed to pay a court judgment from August 15 and was late in filing an appeal.

It's bad enough when a fellow developer steals one idea from someone else, but how bad is it when they steal three and combine them? That's exactly what the makers of the iOS game Cut the Birds did. Taking the cuddly characters from Angry Birds, the slashing action of Fruit Ninja and the unique title of Cut The Rope, developer SolverLabs LLC managed to get the game on Apple's App Store

Righthaven has been ordered to pay nearly $119,488 in attorney fees, court costs after losing a lawsuit against former federal prosecutor Thomas DiBiase. The company, which trolls internet sites and sues them for alleged newspaper copyright infringement (it represented the rights of the Las Vegas Review-Journal in this case), couldn't afford to pay a previous judgment of $34,045, and likely faces an even bigger judgment in another case involving the Democratic Underground.

Using Justin Bieber (of all people) as a focal point for their message an advocacy group has created a campaign to warn U.S. citizens of the dangers found in an anti-piracy bill pending in the Senate. The bill, which was approved in the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill in June, would make it a felony for users to post unlicensed content online 10 times in 180 days. The bill is backed by the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Ubisoft is facing a trademark complaint filed by a rock band that just happens to have the same name as one of its upcoming products. The claim has forced the company to delay the game in question in Europe and defend itself in court. The French publisher announced this morning that its music game Rocksmith won't be released in Europe until sometime in 2012, citing "music licensing" and "other external factors" as the causes.

A Zelda iOS game has made it on to iTunes. No, Nintendo has not succumbed to the madness of investors and analysts who think the company should put its marquee titles on Apple platforms. Nintendo has no idea (chances are they do as of now) that a game called Ultimate iZelda Climb even exists. But it does. Ultimate iZelda Climb, available now on iTunes for $.99, "borrows" the likeness of Windwaker's Link, who hops from one random floating island to another. Oh joy, oh rapture.

According to a report in The Escapist by way of a ModDB post from the Nexus: Battlestar Galactica team, NBC Universal has shut down their mod - as well as 20 or so other mods related to SyFy Networks' popular Battlestar Galactica TV series. From the ModDB post:

On Monday a ruling by a California judge suggested that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows for DVD ripping if you own the DVD in question. More importantly, educational institutions are entitled to stream legally purchased DVDs on campus without the permission of copyright holders.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, why isn't Electronic Arts blushing at the compliments inadvertently (or on purpose) bestowed upon them by Energy Armor? Because lawsuits take care of these sorts of things in corporate America, of course. Electronic Arts has sued Energy Armor, who do business using the same initials and because their logo looks suspiciously like EA's.

The government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has resubmitted a revision of the Canadian digital copyright law (C-11) to Parliament. The bill is being described by Canadian media as pretty much the same as the previous bill submitted by Harper's government the last time. This time the bill will probably pass.

If you thought that Minecraft maker Mojang and lawyers for Bethesda and parent company Zenimax would settle their dispute over the word "Scrolls" out of court, then you were a little too optimistic. A tweet from Mojang founder Markus Persson (Notch) confirms that the case is indeed heading to court:

"The Scrolls case is going to court! Weee! :D," Notch said this morning via Twitter.

A Boston University student who just can't seem to get enough of file-sharing owes the RIAA hundreds of thousands of dollars for downloading a ton of music - again. Joel Tenenbaum's trial for file-sharing ended with a $675,000 jury verdict against him, but Judge Nancy Gertner slashed the award down to $67,500. The judge said at the time that the massive judgment violated the US Constitution and had to be reduced. The judge added that $67,500 was as high as was permissible under the law.

Well it finally happened; Double Fine decided that Trenched needed a name change - and not just in Europe anymore. During a recent Giant Bomb’s Big Live Live Show Live! Double Fine's Brad Muir and Greg Rice announced that Trenched would now be called Iron Brigade. The main reason for the worldwide name change is so that the company can completely avoid any possible confusion with the board game Trench.

After a few roadblocks, Double Fine's Trenched finally has a release date for Europe. Microsoft has confirmed that the game will be sold under a new name - Iron Brigade - and released in Europe this September. Confirmation comes from a Microsoft press document issued at German games show Gamescom today.

"Xbox Live Arcade fans will also be able to get their hands on Iron Brigade, also known as Trenched, which will be released in Europe this September," the press briefing read.

GamerLaw has an in-depth analysis of the Scrolls v. Elder Scrolls situation that was made public last week by Indie developer Mojang - better known as the makers of Minecraft.

Zynga has won the first round in its legal battle against Brazilian publisher Vostu. A Judge has ordered a preliminary injunction against Vostu, who has been ordered to remove its games (MegaCity, Café Mania, Pet Mania and Vostu Poker) from Google’s Ortuk social network and Facebook. within 48 hours. For every day the company keeps those games up after the 48 hour period, it will be fined 20,000 Brazilian Reals, or $11,000.