Free Republic

Alaska Libertarians and other anti-drug war activists have filed a lawsuit against the state's lieutenant governor for rejecting an initiative to decriminalize hemp. On January 28, the Free Hemp in Alaska (FHA) organization filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in Anchorage to force the state to place the initiative on the August 2004 ballot. In the lawsuit, FHA attorney Ken Jacobus argued that initiative backers filed enough signatures to qualify the measure, even though they failed to follow all of the state's record-keeping rules. "Why disenfranchise thousands of voters?" asked FHA Chair Scot Dunnachie. "Maybe it's because the lieutenant governor...

<p>LONDON -- The head of an Internet cafe chain pledged Wednesday to appeal a judge's ruling that the company broke copyright law by letting customers copy music from the Internet.</p> <p>Greek entrepreneur Stelio Haji-Ioannou said Tuesday's court decision against his easyInternetcafe chain had failed to consider that recordings for private and domestic use were exempt from Britain's 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.</p>

LOS ANGELES –– The owners of the KaZaA file-sharing network are suing the movie and recording industries, claiming that they don't understand the digital age and are monopolizing entertainment. Sharman Networks Ltd. filed its counterclaim Monday in response to a copyright-infringement lawsuit brought by several recording labels and movie studios. That lawsuit accuses Sharman of providing free access to copyright music and films to millions of Internet users in the United States.

Hilary Rosen paces the creaking oak floor of the Oxford Union debate hall, eyeing the empty pews the way a Roman gladiator might have surveyed the Colosseum. Rosen is the chair of the Recording Industry Association of America, and in a few hours she'll be standing here in a black formal gown, getting ripped to pieces. Along with several other industry executives, she's charged with defending the proposition: "This house believes that the free-music mentality is a threat to the future of music." Of course, the students of "this house" believe nothing of the sort. "I myself have about 900...