Pirate Party pledges discounts for sluggish broadband speeds

You may be excused for thinking the Pirate Party is pro-piracy and advocates the counterfeiting of copyright material. It's a bit of misjudged name really; choosing to label yourself with a term that's surrounded by so much controversy is bound to get a few cages rattling.

Despite first impressions, Pirate Party UK is keen to point out it doesn't support hardcore piracy, and if it got elected (which, let's face it, is highly unlikely) it would neither sit left wing or right wing.

Ahead of the next general election it's released a manifesto outlining its position on hot topics such as copyright, patent and privacy laws as well as freedom of speech.

Keen to make big changes to copyright it's promoting a "format shift" which would make it legally purchased materials to be moved onto CDs and iPods as well as being recorded for later use. It would also cut the copyright terms down from 70 years to ten and make it an obligation for products with digital rights management (DRM) to be clearly labelled.

Speaking on privacy, it would like to ban the monitoring of communications by a third party - that would mean the likes of the controversial ad-targetting service, Phorm would be out of the question, as well as the Labour government's suggestion of gathering the browser session data of broadband customers.

As far as next-generation broadband goes, and its take on how best to kit up the whole of the UK with access to the net, it's keen to pay particular attention to rural areas and to make sure broadband customers get what they pay for.

The manifesto pledged: "We will solve the problem of false and misleading advertising of internet speeds by giving customers a right to pay only for the fraction of the claimed broadband speed the provider actually delivers, so if you sign up for an 8Mb connection and only receive 2Mb, you would only have to pay a quarter of the agreed price."

The Pirate Party's full manifesto is available to view, here.