From the Red Herring article the reasons for blocking the what is deemed pirated material is the same reason that AT&T and other ISP want to create a tiered service structure where they can charge more for certain content to get the same throughput that is currently available.
AT&T has just found an end round to the government before the democrats could bring net neutrality to a vote. Because braodband was built and its business increased based upon the requirements of rich media content, now that they have their audience they want to suck them as dry as possible.
AT&T is just trying out it's technology that it would use to move traffic to a slower smaller pipe for those not paying the extra fee for their content to be presented in the best light. A new cash cow for AT&T and other telecoms that would benefit from the loss of net Neutrality. The consumers are the big loosers, and so would any new internet venture that did not have the start up resources to get on the higher service tier.
A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.