AT&T Cuts Anti-Bush Lyrics from Webcast
By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
August 10, 2007, 4:31 PM
AT&T is trying to quell criticism after monitors it hired cut two lines of anti-Bush lyrics from its webcast of a Pearl Jam concert in Chicago earlier this week.
The company said in a statement Thursday that the lyrics should not have been censored. The rock band was singing a cover of the Pink Floyd track "Another Brick in the Wall." Instead of the line "teacher, leave those kids alone," lead singer Eddie Vedder replaced it with his own lyrics.
Both the band and Internet advocates used the incident to promote the cause of net neutrality, which calls for laws that prohibit bandwidth owners from giving preferential treatment to content or media that benefits 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," the band said in a statement on its Web site.
AT&T, however, insisted the edit was a mistake, and was taking steps to prevent it from happening again in the future. In addition, the company was looking into licensing the song to play it on Blue Room, its multimedia portal.






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