The German Pirate Party has released a brochure (PDF, German), outlining the party's agenda for a free and open Internet, based on discussions with a group of German publishers. The program they set out is one that I hope to see many parties adopting — I could certainly see liberal democratic, green, and libertarian parties all adopting this, along with left-leaning labor parties like Canada's NDP.
I have less hope for the UK's larger parties. I don't expect that UK Labour will be able to adopt this, as they've proven themselves (repeatedly) to be hopeless compromised on questions of Internet freedom, establishing themselves over 12 years as the party of Internet surveillance, censorship, and corporatist special favours without regard to the cost to wider society. Which is a shame, given that the UK Tories have nearly identical views, and the UK LibDems, for all their adoption of conference motions on Internet freedom, have also been active participants in making UK Internet policy worse, both in opposition and in power.
Here's Glyn Moody's summary of the Pirate position, from TechDirt.
* No online surveillance, blocking technologies or data retention
* The reduction of the term of copyright
* Legalization of DRM circumvention tools
* More rights for creators when negotiating with publishers
* Legalization of free, non-commercial copying of all creative works online
* Digital archives for libraries
* Exemption of educational establishments from copyright licensing fees
* Open access to all publicly-funded academic work and broadcasting
* Legalization of open wifi networks
German Pirate Party Makes Some Shockingly Unshocking Proposals For Copyright Reform
