Three songs from each show will be available after the concert on Verizon’s V Cast service and PearlJamConcerts.com. One song will be a free mobile download and the other two will be available for purchase.

Once the V Cast tracks are purchased they will be sent to the users mobile phone and computer. The songs will have Verizon’s digital rights management system and will be sold as ringtones and ringbacks.

The Verizon partnership includes mobile tickets. Fans downloading Pearl Jam content from V Cast will be eligible to win tickets to an upcoming show. Tickets will be sent to the phones of winning fans in the form of a barcode that can be scanned at the concerts venue.

Previously, Pearl Jam has used a proprietary tool to allow fans to purchase their bootlegs but the band is not doing so this time. Pearl Jam fan club manager Tim Bierman told Billboard.com,"Customers will download through their individual browsers. Those needing help with larger files/slower connections will be advised to use a free download manager available on the Web."

Pearl Jam’s bootleg series started on CD in 2000 and then moved to digital-only for the band’s 2006 tour. CDs will be available for the band’s summer tour and will be made on demand and mailed within three weeks of the show.
 

So the Pearl Jam incident is what you might call a big disaster for AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast, who’ve placed their bets on a non-neutral world, and have spent vast sums lobbying the government to prevent oversight.

In an interview with Net Neutrality campaigner Matt Stoller, Copps called the Internet "perhaps the most dynamic and liberating" technology in human history.

"So when something like the episode occurs with Pearl Jam that you’re referencing that ought to concern all of us," he said.

"It ought to concern us whether we’re liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, young or old, because if you can do it for one group you can do it to any group and say well it’s not intentional and things like that."

AT&T came forward last week and admitted to the inadvertent censorship of "a handful" of other bands that includes Rage Against the Machine and the Flaming Lips. The company shifted blame for the incidents, all of which involved political speech and not profanity, to a third party monitoring service.

Things as they are now, with no Net Neutrality assurances whatsoever, Copps reiterates that there is no mechanism in place to prevent incidents like this in the future. Drawing on a more historically accurate, common sense approach, rather than an overall philosophy that is more pleasing to the ear than it is true, Copps warns that where there incentive and ability to do something, it most likely will be done.

"We are seriously in danger of going down another road and it seems to me if you look back over history, if you have the power, the technology to do something, and you have a commercial or business incentive to do it, you can be damn sure someone’s going to try it somewhere down the line."

The company was quick to distance itself from the events, shifting blame to a third-party service in charge of monitoring the Blue Room webcasts for profanity, which means, as these things flow downward, somebody’s in a lot of trouble. An AT&T spokesperson assured critics similar incidents wouldn’t happen in the future.

As for the profanity monitoring in the all-ages Blue Room, fans around the Internet protested the statement, noting at least 20 instances in the Lollapalooza webcast where "the F-word" slipped through.

Further investigations from fans and MTV News identified previously censored webcasts from Bonnaroo, another popular concert. The bands muted there include the Flaming Lips, the John Butler Trio, and comments made by Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine.

That Rage Against the Machine was edited is somewhat sublime irony, considering it was a crucial cog in "the machine" that attempted to silence the rage.

CNet quotes Future of Music Coalition executive director Jenny Toomey, who makes a poignant argument:

"If AT&T can’t be trusted to Webcast the political stage banter of a few rock bands, why would we turn the keys to the Internet over to them? Their promises to not block Internet content now ring hollow."

But the real biters come from Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, as quoted at MTV.com:

Surely the American listening public can discern for themselves what they deem acceptable to hear. This is a hallmark of our American way! The freedom to listen to what you want or don’t want to. The American public was duped as was I in believing that I can speak freely without censorship….

When one person or company decides what others can hear, that is totalitarian thinking! This runs contrary to America and threatens the core of our freedom. We can think for ourselves, AT&T.  

The offending content? In a medley combining the song "Daughter" with Pink Floyd’s classic "Another Brick in the Wall," lead singer Eddie Vedder altered the lyrics to challenge President George W. Bush:

"George Bush, leave this world alone. George Bush find yourself another home."

No matter your politics, you’d be hard pressed to find an American that wouldn’t support, at least, Vedder’s right to say that – unless you look somewhere deep inside the AT&T headquarters, where the Patriot Act and the National Security Agency are frequent visitors.

Not that that had anything to do with those lyrics not making it over the so-called "live" webcast. AT&T says it was an accident – sort of.
In numerous early sources (this story is about to blow, by the way), an AT&T spokesperson said one of their webcast editors, in an overzealous attempt to police foul language, goofed.

In a statement to Om Malik:

“The editing of the Pearl Jam performance on Sunday night was not intended, but rather a mistake by one of the webcast editors. We have policies in place with respect to editing excessive profanity, but AT&T does not edit or censor performances. We have that policy in place because the blue room is not age-restricted.
We regret the mistake and are trying to work with the band to post the song in its entirety.”

Does political commentary fall under the umbrella of "profanity," then?

Not according to Tiffany Nels, who is quoted in the Chicago Tribune:

"We think it was just a little overzealous. It’s not our policy to edit political commentary."

Policy or not, it happened, and somebody’s probably fired, as this is about to cause a heap of trouble for AT&T.

The band itself broke the news via a release on their website, and they’re not happy about it:

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."

Worse for AT&T, they effectively used former CEO Ed Whiteacre’s words against him, quoting one of many times the company’s messages haven’t matched its actions:

"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 as the band notes, not even choice of another provider is really true. Even if you did go with another provider, guess who owns the backbone, and who, ultimately, controls access? We suppose this is another example of the "healthy" competition that exists in the telco industry.

SaveTheInternet.com, which has now signed 1.5 million supporters to the support of Net Neutrality, says this AT&T already playing gatekeeper in the absence of neutral assurances:

The moral of this story is never trust AT&T at their word. The company acts in bad faith toward the public interest and will do whatever it can get away with to pad it’s bottom line — including sacrificing the freedoms its users have to choose where they go, what they watch and whom they listen to online.

It is also a glimpse of a future poorly controlled by the Federal Communications Commission, which tends to favor the telecom giant, and which tends to support, under the lead of Chairman Martin, more censorship and speech regulation, even on subscription television channels.

The only line of defense, then, is Congress, who we hope, at least in this matter, won’t severely disappoint us…their track record notwithstanding.

On a lighter note, check out this interpretation of Pearl Jam’s famous non-lyrical "Yellow Ledbetter." Maybe there’s nothing in it that AT&T can object to.