Social networks can't be forced to police their services for copyrighted material or block users, according to a new ruling from Europe's highest court. The court said that it could not be forced to these things because that burden would drive their costs up and infringe on users' privacy. The Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) ruled on a case involving two Belgian companies at odds over copyright infringement: a music royalty collecting society called SABAM and the online social network Netlog.

Like flies drowning in a summer cooler left to thaw in the August heat, countries that once considered the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) a grand idea worth supporting are walking away from it. The latest country to step back from ACTA is Bulgaria, according to Forbes. Recently, Germany said that it would hold off on ratifying the "executive agreement" signed by our president.

Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, has criticized the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on German television, saying of the treaty that he does not "find it good in its current form." Schulz's comments came on the heels of protests throughout various countries in Europe - including Germany, Poland and the UK. Schulz went on to say that there is no balance between copyright protection and the individual rights of internet users, noting that it "is only very inadequately anchored in this agreement".

David Martin, a British MEP from the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) party, has been asked to draw up the European Parliament's opinion on ACTA, after French Socialist MEP Kader Arif quit the position in protest of the lack of transparency related to ACTA's progress in the European Union Parliament.

"I want the Parliament to have a facts-based discussion and not a debate around myths," Martin said in a statement. "That is why I want to have an open debate with all concerned.”

ACTA protests around Europe have caused various European Union governments to suspend the endorsement of the anti-copyright infringement treaty. EU members Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have all announced that they will delay ratifying the treaty. We've already mentioned the protests in Poland (where even members of Poland's government got involved by donning Guy Fawkes masks in parliament) and the Czech Republic's opposition, but we haven't talked about what the Slovakian government thinks of ACTA.

The Czech Personal Data Protection Office (UOOU) has written on its official web site that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is "unbalanced with regard to the existing legal guarantees of individuals´ rights."

In addition, Czechoslovakian Prime Minister Petr Necas (Civic Democrats, ODS) announced on Monday that the Czech Republic would suspend ratification of the treaty to further analyze its impact on the country's citizens.

Romania's Prime Minister has resigned after three weeks of protests related to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and anti-austerity measures. While the ACTA protests probably didn't help, most believe the protests related to serious cuts in government jobs and pay, as well as tax hikes were the final nail in the coffin for the PM. Romania, which is the second poorest country in the European Union, is facing a debt crisis similar to that of Greece. And like Greece, Romania appealed to the International Monetary Fund to avoid an economic collapse.

Malta's Labour Party spokesman Michael Farrugia has told Malta Today that the Anti-Counterfeit Trading Agreement (ACTA) is too vague and, as a result, could do damage to generic pharmaceutical companies in Malta and Europe and infringe on Internet freedoms. He also complains about how the treaty was negotiated in a secretive and exclusive manner.

Malta's Alternattiva Demokratika (AD) party joins the European Greens in their call to discard the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The European Greens recently commissioned a study to see how ACTA squared with the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (ECHR).

While some politicians in Poland believe that signing the ACTA treaty was a smart idea - even in the midst of actual protesting in the streets (some put the number of protesters at 20,000 people), some have sided with the public. The picture to your left - found on TechDirt - shows that some politicians in the country have some sense. Today a whole gaggle of politicians donned famed Guy Fawkes masks in the Parliament to protest the vote.

While the European Union has officially signed ACTA - it's not all bad news for those worried about this anti-piracy treaty negotiated in secret. For one, it is an international treaty, which means that it has to be approved by the European Parliament.

Internet game rental company OnePlayS has publicly stated that it wants to share its used game profits with publishers. The company is the brainchild of LoveFilm co-founder Lasse Jensen, which was launched in Denmark in 2008. This year the company has expanded across Europe and it wants to work closely with publishers in partnerships where everyone makes money... except maybe the developers.

Bloomberg is reporting that Activision-Blizzard's top stakeholder Vivendi SA has failed to obtain a new line of credit worth an estimated €1 billion. According to multiple sources with "knowledge of the negotiations," the credit deal fell through mostly because of wary investors who are dealing with the mounting pressure from the European debt crisis.

Watchdog groups and governments in Europe are taking a closer look at Carrier IQ's tracking software, to make sure those mobile phone vendors and operators who use it are not violating users' privacy or the law. The Bavarian State Office for Data Protection recently sent a letter to Apple asking it how it uses Carrier IQ's software.

In the summer of this year law enforcement agencies in several European countries conducted raids and made arrests related to movie streaming links portal Kino.to and file-hosting sites such as Duckload.com. Duckload lost 400 servers to police, worth more than 2 million dollars in total. While police managed to nab most of the targets they were looking for one man managed to escape apprehension. The net has finally fallen on that man. After five months of evading police the man known believed to be Tim C has been arrested in Germany.

Sweden's Pirate Party had hoped to attend this year's Gamex game convention and had already laid the ground work to be there, but it looks like the political group was officially uninvited by organizers. Gamex is one of Sweden's biggest gaming events featuring exhibitions from all the big names in gaming including Activision, Electronic Arts, Microsoft and Nintendo. The event took place over the weekend.

It looks like the online game Mythos is about to disappear from the European gaming landscape. MMORPG.com is reporting that MMO operator Frogster will discontinue operation of the game on October 27. The game launched in April but did not gain the kind of player support that the company had hoped. The company made the official announcement via the game's forums:

The EU Commission has handed out a 2.8 million Euro grant to four technology companies and two universities to develop the next generation of console hardware. Companies receiving a portion of the grant money include Edinburgh-based Codeplay, Cambridge-based Geomerics, AI company AiGameDev.com, and Greece-based Think Silicon. Germany's TU-Berlin and Sweden's Uppsala University, round out the group.

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.

Sony said yesterday that it expects see a huge impact on earnings from the weakened euro, underscoring a vulnerability that many companies may be facing thanks to the ongoing European debt crisis.

"There are no countermeasures that we can take for the moment,” said Hiroshi Kurihara, corporate treasurer at Sony in an interview with Bloomberg yesterday. “There is a huge impact on our earnings."

This morning Kotaku pointed out a video from Germany's RTL Television in which commentators took great delight in mocking what they characterized as the "computer freaks" that they filmed at last week's Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. Today the show, apparently embarrassed (and likely humbled by fans that were pissed off at their mean-spirited characterizations) is now apologizing for their bad judgment in airing the report.

Square Enix has confirmed that it has no plans to region-lock the European version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution for Windows.

"We're aware of some discussion regarding the planned region-locking of boxed PC versions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and, after careful review, we have decided not to implement this in the UK/Europe," wrote Square Enix mastering manager Jason Walker (via Rock Paper Shotgun).

With the 2011 Game Developers Conference Europe (GDC Europe) coming to a conclusion on August 17, organizers have tallied the final attendance count. According to GDC Europe organizers, more than 2,100 game professionals representing 57 countries attended the event. Professionals from all areas of the game industry convened throughout the three day conference to discuss trends and new opportunities among their peers. A marquee keynote lineup of notable industry veterans joined 170 European and international speakers, 46 exhibitors, 35 sponsors and more than 300 media representatives.

Electronic Arts managed to score four out of eight of the nods given out at the Gamescom 2011 awards. Chosen by a jury of national and international media, press, and trade representatives, the panel set out to pick the best games shown at the annual event held in Cologne, Germany.

The big winner was Battlefield 3, which was honored with the Best Of Gamescom 2011 award. EA Sports' FIFA 12 was named Best Console Game,  Star Wars: The Old Republic won the Best Online Game award, and EA's The Sims Social took home the Best Browser Game award.

Nintendo of Europe is giving the Wii a facelift and will make some key changes to the system as it prepares for a holiday bundle late this year. This most notable change for Europeans will be that the system will no longer offer backwards compatibility for GameCube games. Chances are that those who would care about that already own a Wii and would therefore be unaffected by those changes. Since the set won't play GameCube games, NOE will also remove ports needed for GameCube controllers and memory cards.

UK video game industry trade group TIGA has joined forces with members of the European Games Developer Federation (EGDF) to voice its concern that the new EU funding programs planned for media and culture and for research and innovation for 2013 - 2020 do not place "sufficient emphasis" on the video game development sector. The groups voiced their concerns at Gamescom this week in Cologne, Germany.

Troubled German publisher JoWooD and Canadian adventure game publisher The Adventure Company have been acquired by Nordic Games for an undisclosed amount of cash. The two companies will become labels of the Nordic Games family, according to a GameIndustry.biz report. The new owner said that it plans to develop and invest in both company's core franchises including SpellForce, Painkiller, Panzer Elite and the popular Gothic series.

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.

“Uh, this game has spiders?”

PEGI, the ratings organization set to take over exclusive game rating duties in Europe sometime in the coming months, uses symbols instead of text for its content descriptors.  If you don’t happen to know what they mean, they can be a little confusing.  For example, the spider icon means: “Fear – Game may be frightening or scary for young children.”

Okay, good to know.

Market research firm The NPD Group will begin providing a version of its Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend Service to track consumer spending for games in several European countries. The NPD Group's U.S. Total Consumer Spend Service offers sales estimates across various video game sales channels including new physical formats sold at retail, social network gaming, used video games, rentals, subscriptions, digital downloads, downloadable content, and mobile games.