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AT&T Censored Anti-Bush Lyrics in Pearl Jam Show

GigaOm tells the tale - AT&T’s admittedly overzealous censor removed anti-Bush lyrics. Overzealous?? How about criminal? What sort of half-wit would think that criticizing Bush was worthy of censorship? I hate to think like the tinfoil hat crew, but I have trouble imagining anyone censoring that without explicit instructions to do. We already know that AT&T is willing to do pretty much anything to curry favour with powerful political organizations (see: AT&T scanning your internet connection for copyrighted material).

For crying out loud. Americans, this is your country, and your losing it.

at&t, censorship pearljam

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AT&T Protest Graphic for your blog, website, whatever

AT&T is stumbling through the Internet age with a stunning lack of foresight: in support of their TV offering, and to make friends with Hollywood, they’ve agreed to work towards actively scanning all AT&T network traffic for copywritten material.

I’m not going to go into the details. CenterNetworks, Uneasy Silence, Dave Winer, Techcrunch, Ars Technica, AllThingsDigital, and others have covered it exhaustively already.

I will, however, contribute a protest button/graphic/badge. Right-click & Save As, and deploy on your blog/website/tshirt/etc as you see fit. Link it back to whatever post, petition, goatse picture, or whatever you choose. Please don’t hotlink. Its a friendly png of 14kb in size, with a popular pop-culture reference to make it extra topical.

UPDATE: I took it down until I can figure out if the AT&T corporate logo can be used for critical purposes under the “fair use” clause without first seeking permission. I am a legal chicken-shit, yes.

UPDATE 2: What do you say - would it be covered under nominative use?

UPDATE 3: Removed literal trademark elements while retaining visual cues and tagline syntax. Should be legal, IMHO.

at&t, att, business models, censorship, copyright, copywrite, mpaa, protest, RIAA, security techmeme

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