Free Chinese Lesson - AT&T errs in edit of anti-Bush lyrics

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ENTERTAINMENT / Music






AT&T errs in edit of anti-Bush lyrics


(AP)
Updated: 2007-08-10 09:18





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A fan crowd surfs during the Modest Mouse set at Lollapalooza
at Grant Park in Chicago on Sunday, Aug. 5, 2007.[AP]

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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 鈥� part of a sing-along with the audience
鈥� 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 鈥� not based on laws, but on their own preferences and
interpretations 鈥� 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.

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