AT&T drops Pearl Jam's call
In a prominent nod to one of the festival's lead sponsors, the logo for this year's Lollapalooza concerts in Chicago includes the tag line, "delivered by AT&T." But Sunday's headliner Pearl Jam complained that AT&T delivered less than the band's full performance during its Lollapalooza webcast. The powerhouse telco turned off the audio during the song "Daughter" while singer Eddie Vedder was railing against President George Bush. That bit of censorship -- which AT&T says was a mistake -- gave a bit of fuel to the forces arguing for "Net neutrality" regulations.
The missing lines -- "George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush find yourself another home" -- are benign compared to some of Vedder's more pointed critiques of Bush and the Iraq war. This isn't exactly "I'm ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas" territory. So you have to wonder what the person who pulled the plug on Vedder was thinking -- or not thinking, as the case may be.
AT&T spokeswoman Tiffany Nels said the company goofed. Its Blue Room website is open to Internet users of all ages, so it tries to block "excessive profanity" from the broadcasts. It hires contractors to monitor the performances, and the broadcasts are delayed slightly to enable monitors to bleep off-color material. But those monitors aren't supposed to edit songs, just the stage patter between them, Nels said. "It's not our policy" to censor performances, Nels said, "and we regret the error." She added, "There was no profanity. It was a mistake."
AT&T wants to post an unexpurgated version of the performance on its Blue Room Lollapalooza page, but it will have to obtain permission from the copyright holder (which would be Pearl Jam, I believe). The band, meanwhile, says it will post the video on its own site soon.
Advocates of Net neutrality rules quickly seized on the incident as justification for requiring high-speed Internet access providers to provide a level playing field for content and services online. AT&T, one of the country's largest broadband suppliers, is one of the loudest opponents of such rules.
“The admitted censoring of a Pearl Jam performance is just one more reason why content should be protected against the actions of a company looking out for itself, rather than for consumers and the free flow of information over the Internet," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. "We join Pearl Jam in condemning censorship and in promoting Internet Freedom. We hope the FCC and Congress take note.”
Added Craig Aaron, communications director for Free Press, "Every time something is censored or blocked it’s a 'mistake' or a 'glitch.' And that could well be the case. But of course there’s no way for users to know. That’s exactly how it will be on the non-neutral Internet and closed wireless networks, where AT&T will be a gatekeeper deciding what you see and when you see it."
When asked about the Net neutrality arguments, Nels of AT&T reiterated that what happened in Chicago was simply a mistake.
The photo of Pearl Jam, courtesy of the band's website, is by Kerensa Wight.
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Presumable, the truth can be known. When Congress returns, why not convene a hearing and subpoena the contractor(s) who did the censoring. Require them to testify under oath exactly whose idea it was to censor those sections and why.
We don't have to take ATT's word on this; we should be able to find out the truth.
Posted by: truthcanbeknown | August 10, 2007 at 09:22 AM
Shut up --
You don't want the performers' to express their political views in their concerts. They do, and so do I. Why do you get a veto over what they want to say and what I want to hear?
And spare us the "employer/employee" analysis: I'm just as much an employer as you in this context.
Posted by: Califlander | August 10, 2007 at 10:05 AM
Re: What does "This isn't exactly "I'm ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas" territory" mean --
Aww, c'mon, Professor! You're overreaching with that one. Read the sentence in its proper context -- I was merely comparing what Vedder said with what Natalie Manes said, not suggesting that the Chicks or anybody else should be censored. It's all part of my mystification, as noted in the very next sentence, about what could possibly have triggered someone to squelch the audio. This isn't civics, this is English. :-)
Posted by: Jon Healey | August 10, 2007 at 11:40 AM
Typical Christian fascist treason against America. Anyone who still uses AT&T and has a choice are funding fascist Christian traitors.
Posted by: Fredric Rice | August 10, 2007 at 11:43 AM
" the songs are political in nature you may have a point, I saw PJ live in the while Clinton was in office and he didn't have [anything] to say on the political front. I don't care for Bush either but I don't want to hear it at a concert. I look at it more as an Employee/Employer or Business/Customer relationship when I buy a ticket. "
If you're looking for a Business/Customer relationship with rock bands (or actually any artist), then you are delusional. But thanks for playing.
Posted by: Max Renn | August 10, 2007 at 12:10 PM
Jon Healey said: "you're paying to be in the presence of someone with gifts you probably don't have, and all the things that come with those gifts."
Exactly. Artists are the chroniclers of our passions and our hearts. Why do some people think it's OK for them to express themselves about romance or beer, but not about issues that have far more impact on our lives?
Shut Up And Sing said: "I look at it more as an Employee/Employer or Business/Customer relationship when I buy a ticket."
What utter nonsense! You do not hire artists to amuse you like court jesters. Artists create for themselves from the raw material in their souls. You either relate or you don't. It's not the artist's problem. Any artist that behaves as an employee of their fans, rather than as an interpreter of the world as they see it, is really just a vacant, corporate whore - and isn't doing their fans any favors either.
The whole notion of "Shut up and sing sing" is offensive. If Artists are good enough to provide insight and emotion to patrons, it doesn't stop when events in the world intrude. I think more artists should speak out more often - and more people should listen to them - and listen less to the so-called leaders that have been screwing everything up.
I wrote about this in length here: Join The Art Insurgency
[Full disclosure: I'm an artist, and I will NOT shut up]
Posted by: Mark @ News Corpse | August 10, 2007 at 12:35 PM
AT&T = BIG CORP AMERICA = BUSH's FRIENDS
Accident or mistake, my ass.
We're quickly becoming The Fascist States of America.
Shame on AT&T. Shame on the sheeple who just go along with it.
Posted by: Matthew | August 10, 2007 at 01:16 PM
Just a quick heads up -- the comments to LATimes.com blogs are moderated, and as we head into the weekend I may not be as quick as I should be in getting them posted. Apologies to all, and thanks to everyone for reading and responding.
Posted by: Jon Healey | August 10, 2007 at 01:25 PM
Fredric Rice, I guess you weren't on the 1998 tour, when Vedder spoke out about impeachment. I guess you also weren't at the many concerts when Vedder expressed his views against war when Clinton was in office.
Remember Last Kiss? That single was on a benefit album for the victims of the bombing in Kosovo. The song Insignificance, an apology for dropping bombs, was written by Vedder in 1999 (Binaural, released in 2000). The song Grievance from the same album has the lines "I pledge my grievance to the flag"
This band has held anti-war views, anti-corporate views, pro-choice views, pro-environment views for as long as they've been a band, and while I don't know about the other band members, Vedder has been supporting these causes since before he joined Pearl Jam.
This is an outspoken band. They don't care who is in office if they don't agree with them.
Maybe you saw them in concert, but you don't know them at all.
Posted by: Lisa | August 10, 2007 at 04:39 PM
Oh my pardon, my reply should have been addressed to "SHUT UP AND SING", not Mr. Rice. The point still stands. Pearl Jam doesn't care who is in office if they don't agree with them. They are about "ideas", not political parties.
Thank you for your time.
Posted by: Lisa | August 10, 2007 at 04:44 PM
Whoops! we destroyed the Constitution and The Bill of Rights!
Whoops!
Oh well it's done, nothing we can do now.
Enjoy your new Plutocratic Taranny.
Posted by: Mr.Tutle | August 11, 2007 at 11:39 AM
It appears that AT&T was bending the truth a bit when it said this was an "accident" and placing the blame on a vendor. For more details, check out WIRED's Listening Post blog, which reports that numerous other bands have been similarly censored. Looks like AT&T was hoping that the "day 1" coverage would be "accident," and no one would actually check the details.
Posted by: Fred von Lohmann | August 13, 2007 at 04:30 PM
I don't believe At+T when they claimed it was a mistake. It was obviously censorship and shame to them for being caught on an illegal act and as well as on a lie. By the way, I thought this company died a few years ago?
Are they still around? I am surprised.
Maychic
Posted by: maychic.com/freebook, On Phil Spector Murder Case | August 13, 2007 at 07:03 PM
Hmm...I'm just amazed at how people think this is a case of AT&T tampering with the internet - a breach of Net Neutrality. This isn't like they tampered with someone else's data, this was AT&T streaming a video on their own website. They should have the right to censor their own website, seeing as if communication companies are allowed to have websites right? Or does that constitute tampering? Really, this is just a matter of a contract between AT&T and Lollapalooza being breached (that only audience cuss words would be bleeped out, or so I infer from the article). And if they did silence the performance on purpose, it's probably because they didn't want to offend Bush and risk not getting the republican parties tax breaks next year.
If you don't like a website being edited, find another source for your news. If there isn't one, make one. This is the internet, not medieval Europe. And besides, who gets anything from "corporate" media outlets anyway? It's like saying McD's dot com is your fav site so you can look at cheeseburgers all day, but you're angry that they don't have cuss word or pornography all over their website.
Posted by: Geminisafari | August 15, 2007 at 12:03 AM
Now AT&T is moving from censorship to surveillance. All the more reason to spread the word about Net Neutrality!!
http://robdubinski.wordpress.com/2007/08/14/att-from-censorship-to-surveillance/
Posted by: Rob D. | August 15, 2007 at 02:50 PM
As an owner of an ISP, I have a unique perspective on the Net Neutrality issue.
There is a monumental difference between delaying or blocking traffic because of content related issues and "traffic shaping" (delaying/giving priority to different traffic types for technical reasons), however both are often lumped into the same broad category of "Net Neutrality".
Traffic shaping is a technique used by ISPs (mostly residential) to give priority of certain TYPES of internet traffic in order to control general speed/availability for the sum total of the ISPs users. A good example of this is giving VoIP traffic higher priority over web traffic. There is often a technical reason behind this (in the example given, the reason is that VoIP needs a higher share of bandwidth and a consistently available connection in order to function properly). This is not a bad thing, and is designed to help deliver the expected services to you.
All forms of blocking or delaying traffic for any non-technical reason is simply censorship, and can't be tolerated. This is the *REAL* definition of Net Neutrality as originally conceived.
The specific instance here fits neither of these categories, as AT&T was filtering their own webcast, posted on their own website. Since they are providing the webcast, they are allowed to censor it however they see fit. Do I personally think they should have done it (accident or not)? No. Is it a violation of Net Neutrality (even in it's broadest sense)? absolutely not. It is censorship, but it is not denial of access.
Posted by: Joe - Sliqua Enterprise Hosting | November 03, 2007 at 09:44 PM