From the Band: 08.08.07

After concluding our Sunday night show at Lollapalooza, fans informed us that portions of that performance were missing and may have been censored by AT&T during the "Blue Room" Live Lollapalooza Webcast.

When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them.

During the performance of "Daughter" the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" but were cut from the webcast:

- "George Bush, leave this world alone." (the second time it was sung); and

- "George Bush find yourself another home."

This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media.

AT&T's actions strike at the heart of the public's concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media.

Aspects of censorship, consolidation, and preferential treatment of the internet are now being debated under the umbrella of "NetNeutrality." Check out The Future of Music or Save the Internet for more information on this issue.

Most telecommunications companies oppose "net neutrality" and argue that the public can trust them not to censor..

Even the ex-head of AT&T, CEO Edward Whitacre, whose company sponsored our troubled webcast, stated just last March that fears his company and other big network providers would block traffic on their networks are overblown..

"Any provider that blocks access to content is inviting customers to find another provider." (Marguerite Reardon, Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: March 21, 2006, 2:23 PM PST).

But what if there is only one provider from which to choose?

If a company that is controlling a webcast is cutting out bits of our performance -not based on laws, but on their own preferences and interpretations - fans have little choice but to watch the censored version.

What happened to us this weekend was a wake up call, and it’s about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band.

The complete version of "Daughter" from the Lollapalooza performance will be posted here soon for any of you who missed it. We apologize to our fans who were watching the webcast and got shortchanged. In the future, we will work even harder to ensure that our live broadcasts or webcasts are free from arbitrary edits.

If you have examples of AT&T censoring artist performances around political content, it's a good thing for everyone to know about. Feel free to post examples on the official Pearl Jam Message Pit.

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From Mike McCready

http://pearljam.com/news/?what=News#198


MIKE MCCREADY WEIGHS IN ON AT&T WEBCAST
08.11.07

Thoughts of an American.

I grew up in a democratic system of government. This is what was taught all through Kindergarten through College. Freedom of thought and expression were hallmarks of my early education. These concepts and theories integrated my belief in an American system of democracy. Consequently, I became a musician because of these inalienable rights. Make no mistake I am an artist and a capitalist because of this system that I believe in and our country. I don't however believe that a capitalist corporation such as AT&T has the right to subvert the first amendment of the constitution to which we all are accountable. This happened on the night we played Lollapalooza. I was dismayed to hear that the act of censoring free speech was used to edit our song Daughter for a webcast. Surely the American listening public can discern for themselves what they deem acceptable to hear. This is a hallmark of our American way!! The freedom to listen to what you want or don't want to. The American public was duped as was I in believing that I can speak freely without censorship.

I can only look to historical figures who are above reproach in my mind, such as Thomas Jefferson "I hope we shall crush...in it's birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." I feel that corporations can still exist without worry of a few words at a rock concert and need not trample upon our constitution for the sake of profit.

Another example that I believe is relevant is a George Orwell quote from Animal Farm. "If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." Some people don't want to hear our political beliefs in a song but that too is the beauty of America. WE CAN DISAGREE and still function as a democracy. When one person or company decides what others can hear, that is totalitarian thinking! This runs contrary to America and threatens the core of our freedom. We can think for ourselves, AT&T. I had the great pleasure of seeing the Space Shuttle launch live in Florida today. This gave me a feeling of excitement and patriotism in my country today.It showed me a future of ingenuity and promise for a better America.

With that I will leave you with a last quote from the quintessential American "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." This is an example of my belief in what Ed was saying the night we were censored during Daughter. You can't get more American than Mark Twain!!! Say no to censorship, it leads to dictatorship!

Mike McCready

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AP picks up the story and AT+T responds


AT&T says edit of rock band’s anti-Bush lyrics was mistake
Eds: Moving on general news, entertainment and financial services.
By MICHELLE ROBERTS
Associated Press Writer

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Lyrics performed by Pearl Jam criticizing President Bush should not have been censored from a webcast by AT&T Inc., a company spokesman acknowledged Thursday.
AT&T, through its Blue Room entertainment site, offered a webcast of the band’s headlining performance Sunday at Lollapalooza in Chicago. The event was shown with a brief delay so the company could bleep out excessive profanity or nudity.
But monitors hired by AT&T through a vendor went further and cut two lines from a song to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall.” One was “George Bush, leave this world alone” the second time it was sung, and the other was “George Bush find yourself another home,” according to the band’s Web site.
AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said that the silencing was a mistake and that the company was working with the vendor that produces the webcasts to avoid future misunderstandings. He said AT&T was working to secure the rights to post the entire song — part of a sing-along with the audience — on the Blue Room site.
Blue Room offers live concerts, sports interviews, video game advice and other entertainment content that requires a high-speed Internet connection. Although viewing the content is free, San Antonio-based AT&T uses the site as a way to promote its DSL broadband services.
Besides Pearl Jam’s show, AT&T showed 21 other performances ranging from Pete Yorn to G. Love and Special Sauce during the three-day Lollapalooza music festival. Coe said no other complaints have been made about censoring.
Pearl Jam said in a posting on its Web site that in the future, it would work harder to ensure live broadcasts or webcasts are “free from arbitrary edits.”
“If a company that is controlling a webcast is cutting out bits of our performance — not based on laws, but on their own preferences and interpretations — fans have little choice but to watch the censored version,” they said.
The alternative rock band and Internet advocates were also using the incident to try to draw attention to the prospects of Internet service providers like AT&T deciding to give preferential treatment to content they favor or have deals with, leaving the rest on slower-moving Internet bandwidths.
Jenny Toomey, executive director of the Future of Music Coalition, said that although net neutrality wasn’t being violated in this case, it still raises questions about whether AT&T and other service providers can be trusted not to hurt artists.
Internet speeds that depend only on the size of files, not the kind of content that’s in them, is a democratizing force, she said.
“We’ve got to protect that, and artists get that,” Toomey said.
AT&T and other providers would like the ability to charge more for transmitting certain kinds of data, like live video, faster or more reliably than other data but have insisted such premium services would help, not hurt, consumers.
Coe said, regardless, the issue of net neutrality is entirely separate from the mistake during the Pearl Jam show.
“This was our own Web site,” he noted.


AT+T’s response: http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/08/att ... -to-e.html


http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/156694 ... _jam.jhtml

AT&T ADMITS IT EDITED WEBCASTS BEFORE PEARL JAM'S





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Other Web appearances

http://www.youtube.com/user/pjtenclub

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertain ... b01_layout

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comment ... nk=2989506

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

http://digg.com/tech_news/Pearl_Jam_cen ... eutral_Net

http://www.futureofmusic.org/rockthenet/index.cfm

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/8/9/92136/29028

hopefully they get pissed off enough by this to realize that if they want to broadcast/distribute live performances in full and uncensored, they need to do it themselves. aka, official releases.

it's the company's choice, it's a free country. if a company wins sponsorship of an event, they can censor it as they see fit. i don't see how this is wrong, although i agree that it's a bad call on censorship of that issue.

of course, this changes if the contract or an agreement states otherwise; i'm just saying that this is the type of thing that can be regulated by putting the right wording into a contract, rather than some NetNeutrality law or something.

good thing BP Amoco wasnt a sponsor.

i wondered about that...the second he started talking about president douchebag the sound cut out...that just sucks!
they also censored the vulgarity too i think

who wants an i-phone?!

Ironic that the machinehead at 10Cunt tells us to voice our opinions at the message pit when THEY CENSOR ME FROM POSTING THERE
Pot/Kettle

lol
and the fact that their defense is: it's a privately owned website.
um, so is at&t's blue room

tim bierman = dick cheney

drama queens

difference is, you can voice your opinion here or on other boards.. you can't watch another webcast.

and I don't agree with TMP censoring things btw.. expect when people start calling each other names..which might be why you're banned for all I know.

what makes me laugh about the A&T cut, is that the tag was very tame compare to the one in Nijmegen! (that one they could have argued on the grounds of profanity...'sucked his father's dick' , even got me go )

we have a thread for message pit bitching. Lets try to keep that stuff there.

I've got no problems with this. They paid for it. They can do what they can with their resources, just as us consumers can choose what to do with our resources. If people are pissed off about it, they can send a message through changing their subscription.

I find it amusing that AT&T thinks that by censoring they may keep favour with the current and soon to be former administration. By censoring they have probably drawn more attention to what was said rather than people trying to interpret Eddie's singing.

I don't think PJ are saying that what AT&T did was illegal and not within their rights but that it is just another example of how media outlets can distort or hide content. When I went to Beijing last year, CNN would frequently go blank for periods of up to 5 minutes - it can be a slippery slope indeed.

But consumers can't choose because the provider had a monopoly on the service - if the contract for the broadcast was open and competitive there would still only be a small number of media would have the capacity to bid for the contract. Secondly, small incidents like this are hardly going to tempt people to change a subscription which will incur a much larger cost to the individual than to the company.

At the same time, I also don't have a problem with PJ doing what they did in putting that media release up on the site in response to what happened, as a sign of protest. The subscription change is just the most drastic measure- a less one would be protest messages to the company, which is exactly what PJ did.

Seems like AT&T have apologised and said they'll make the full version available, now that PJ has made this an issue.

I think the best thing about this is that they actually listened to their fans and reacted. That's almost communication

groetjes,
Mirella (same for the name change in Italian of the upcoming DVD )

Now if only they would listen to us and release them bloody European bootlegs...

Anyway, great country, the US & A.

Ten cunt, now that's creative.

Media consolidation seems like the logical next step up from ticketmaster. This is a worthwhile crusade for them to get invovled in, even if they don't have nearly the clout they did last time

That was a fight they lost. And they've got no clout at all in this arena. The best they can do is call attention to the debate that's raging over this, under the radar of most consumers of internet media.

PJ's statement does not dispute the fact that ATT as a sponsor of the webcast has a "right" to censor whatever it wants. What it points out is that censorship, inadvertent or not, occured and that we should be aware of it. Incidents like this will occur without apology or comment with regularity should the current trend toward media consolidation continue and no real standards for "net neutrality" exist. There has been a movement in the current administration, to put the regulation of the "internets" that we all dearly love, even more than we love Pearl Jam, into the hands of the private sector completely. We all know how well self-regulation worked in the American meat industry.