Bye, “George”: AT&T Censors Pearl Jam Lollapalooza Webcast, Pearl Jam Responds

Pearl Jam capped off this year’s three-day Lollapalooza blowout on August 5, and as anyone who knows much about the band might expect, singer Eddie Vedder badmouthed Big Government (Mr. Bush) and Big Business (BP Amoco) on stage. If you weren’t lucky enough to be there (as we weren’t), but caught AT&T’s “live” Blue Room webcast of the band’s performance, you missed some of Eddie’s poli-sci jabs because they were strategically removed.

What did AT&T cut from their “exclusive” broadcast? Here’s one bit, nipped from an improvised interlude during “Daughter”:

“George Bush, find yourself another home.”

Pearl Jam responded to AT&T’s cuts Wednesday, via a cool, collected, but sharp statement on pearljam.com:

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 … 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.

A “mistake” would be convenient, good news for AT&T, since not many people outside corporate and government offices are for invisible censorship these days. Certainly not musicians, artists, and the fans of their work. The band’s response points out that:

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?

Indeed. Immediately following an apology to Blue Room perusers who “got shortchanged,” the band says, “In the future, we will work even harder to ensure that our live broadcasts or webcasts are free from arbitrary edits.” Read: Cross AT&T off the list of the band’s future business partners.

Pearl Jam plans to post the “complete version” of “Daughter” soon. For now, here’s a capture of the excised, anti-Bush line (which—surprise!—is more harmless than Bush’s average day in office):

Given Pearl Jam’s penchant for independently releasing material, we wouldn’t be surprised if future webcasts, if and when they exist, stream from official Pearl Jam servers. In the meantime, though, what will come of AT&T’s “mistake”? We’d like to see a public apology from the company, or at least an elaboration on the purported error. Beyond that, we’re guessing nothing much comes of the flap. And if that’s the case, you can thank Big Business.

Update: In a front-page Chicago Tribune story this morning, an AT&T spokesperson states: “We don't have a policy in place to censor. We have a policy on excessive profanity. This was an honest mistake. There was no censorship intended." Of course!