Net Neutrality: Pearl Jam v. AT&T

[Overman]

OK.

I went to Lollapalloza this weekend to see my favorite band Pearl Jam. Details here from the live music thread in Arts section of this forum. As many know they are a politically charged band. Their show was playing live on the net in a blue room performance, but AT&T censored out all of Eddies remarks, even mid song, about Dubya. For instance, he tagged 'Daughter' with 'Another Brick in the Wall' and led the audience of 60,000 plus in a lyrical twist singing 'George Bush, leave this world alone', and this was censored...

Linky


Pearl Jam's Response

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.

AT&T's response...

AT&T sees things a bit, well, differently. Company spokesperson Brad Mays tells Ars Technica that the company does monitor broadcasts for profanity, as Blue Room is available to all ages, but that the censorship was a "mistake by a webcast vendor and contrary to our policy. We have policies in place with respect to editing excessive profanity, but AT&T does not edit or censor performances."

The company especially objects to making this incident part of a larger rallying cry for network neutrality, and we can see their point. This wasn't the company monitoring, degrading, or censoring someone else's content flowing across its IP networks; it was an act of content censorship of AT&T's own programming. It's much like the censorship that routinely takes place on television, and "network neutrality" enters the picture only because this particular show was streamed over the 'Net.

 

[Grammatron]

So why doesn't Pearl Jam put on a free show and beam it all over youtube or their own website at their own expense?

No one will be able to censor them then.

 

[Nick Bogaerts]

Back in the days, there was only Ma Bell. Now they've gotalternatives to AT&T, and I hope they choose one.

Net neutrality is a real concern, but this isn't part the issue.

 

[Overman]

So why doesn't Pearl Jam put on a free show and beam it all over youtube or their own website at their own expense?

No one will be able to censor them then.

They certianly can!

But this is a little different here..they did not expect to be censored. It isn't exactly what they signed up for...

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Maybe I'm missing something but these statements don't seem to jive with one another...

AT&T sees things a bit, well, differently. Company spokesperson Brad Mays tells Ars Technica that the company does monitor broadcasts for profanity, as Blue Room is available to all ages, but that the censorship was a "mistake by a webcast vendor and contrary to our policy. We have policies in place with respect to editing excessive profanity, but AT&T does not edit or censor performances."

They did edit and censor the performance. That it wasn't their policy and was a mistake may be true, but in the end, they did edit and censor the performance.

The company especially objects to making this incident part of a larger rallying cry for network neutrality, and we can see their point. This wasn't the company monitoring, degrading, or censoring someone else's content flowing across its IP networks; it was an act of content censorship of AT&T's own programming. It's much like the censorship that routinely takes place on television, and "network neutrality" enters the picture only because this particular show was streamed over the 'Net.

And now they say they do censor, but it's okay because it wasn't someone else's content but their own.

 

[Grammatron]

They certianly can!

But this is a little different here..they did not expect to be censored. It isn't exactly what they signed up for...

Always something in that fine print.

 

[Nick Bogaerts]

And now they say they do censor, but it's okay because it wasn't someone else's content but their own.

No, they aren't saying that it is okay, but that it isn't an issue of Net neutrality, which it would be if they censored other people's content.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

No, they aren't saying that it is okay, but that it isn't an issue of Net neutrality, which it would be if they censored other people's content.

Ah. I see where things went askew for me. I took that to be like it was coming from AT&T, but it was just about AT&T. "The company" I took as a spokesman using third person, like in the earlier quote where the spokesman says "AT&T does not edit". No wonder the "we can see their point" made no sense at the time.