Pirate Party issues 2010 manifesto

The UK arm of the Pirate Party has pledged to focus its efforts on freedom of speech

The UK arm of the Pirate Party has posted its 2010 manifesto, saying that it will focus efforts on copyright reform, privacy protection and freedom of speech.

The party said that it would avoid any sort of broad tendencies, billing itself as neither left wing nor right wing. However, the group did say that it would advocate greater personal freedom and would not raise taxes.

Central to the party's mission will be an overhaul of copyright law. The group vowed to shorten the period of copyright coverage to 10 years before a work enters the public domain, and would not allow copyright holders to renew copyright by moving to a new format.

Contrary to its name, the Pirate Party said that it will not advocate piracy of copyrighted works.

"Counterfeiting, and profiting directly from other people's work without paying them, will remain illegal," reads the manifesto.

On the subject of privacy, the party vowed to restrict the use of digital rights management (DRM) software and other embedded technologies to prevent copying files.

"We believe the public needs to be protected from products that can be remotely turned off by the manufacturer, or products that 'phone home' and would therefore stop working if the manufacturer went bankrupt, or that are 'region coded'."

Additionally, the party said that it would give users the right to encrypt their systems and allow them to file for compensation when government agencies lose their personal data.

Finally, the group said that it would legislate to preserve net neutrality, forbid the government from censoring any web content and protect whistleblowers who report criminal activities from copyright and contract penalties.