AT&T censors Pearl Jam's anti-Bush lyrics
By Reuters
Story last modified Thu Aug 09 12:18:54 PDT 2007
Pearl Jam fans and Internet watchdogs were up in arms Thursday after it
was revealed that AT&T censored portions of the rock band's live
concert cybercast on Sunday.
While performing "Daughter" during the annual Lollapalooza festival in
Chicago, Pearl Jam segued into a portion of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick
in the Wall," during which frontman Eddie Vedder sang, "George Bush,
leave this world alone" and "George Bush, find yourself another home."
Those lyrics were missing from the broadcast.
Vedder also railed against oil giant BP during the set, and later,
brought a disabled Iraq War veteran onstage to call for an end to the
conflict. Neither of these segments was edited.
In a statement, AT&T attributed the bleeping to "a mistake by a Webcast
vendor" that was "contrary to our policy. We have policies in place
with respect to editing excessive profanity, but AT&T does not censor
performances. We very much regret that this happened in the first
place."
The company also said it was "working with the band to post the song in
its entirety," a sentiment echoed by Pearl Jam on its official Web
site. "In the future, we will work even harder to ensure that our live
broadcasts or Webcasts are free from arbitrary edits," read a statement
on PearlJam.com.
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The incident has generated hundreds of posts on the band's Web forum as
well as a response from the Future of Music Coalition, a strong
advocate for laws that ensure free speech online.
"This event shows that companies like AT&T will risk the appearance of
censorship by turning off the sound on a Webcast that's being viewed by
thousands of people, just because it works counter to their financial
interests," said FOMC executive director Jenny Toomey. "What do you
think they will do to protect their financial interests on the Web when
no one is looking?"
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