A $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube is threatening people’s exchange of information on the internet, Google Inc. said. The claim was made as a reaction to Viacom Inc., who says YouTube was responsible for “an explosion of copyright infringement.” And YouTube owes them the money for illegally showing material from MTV, Comedy Central and other networks.

Although YouTube got famous for letting people upload any content they wanted, it is true they are working hard to eliminate illegal content these days. Google said their YouTube “goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works.” And Viacom wants to hold carriers and providers responsible for what people share, which “threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression.” It seems like Google wants to turn this into a net neutrality debate.

In a speech at the National Press Club, Motion Picture Association of America president Dan Glickman said the movie industry had to adjust to the current ‘tech-savvy generation.’ The MPAA actually realized the people downloading movies still go to the theater in much greater numbers than the average consumer.

While he felt that regulation is still needed, he said, “We also know that consumers increasingly want to enjoy our films in new ways. We have to give folks the choices they desire — legally — in the comfort of their homes and wherever else they wish to enjoy our movies.“

Basically admitting legal downloading always was and still isn’t where it has to be to satisfy consumers. “There are technology and policy issues to work through. [...] I think we’ll soon see some progress that will really open up how exciting this future could be for all of us,” Glickman said.

After that, he lightly touched upon net neutrality. The MPAA is still in favor of regulating internet usage, but he said “laws of unintended consequences are always applicable. We need to be extremely cautious before going down this road.“

While the word isn’t fully out yet, some in Hollywood are taking note of network neutrality. If you don’t know what net neutrality is, it basically means no one would be able to control the internet. ‘Evil companies’ are currently pushing federal rules to be able to control what you are allowed to do on the internet. If your internet company would make a deal with a film company, the film company could get priority over this website. And they could slow down your access to this page. Or for example stop you from sharing movies, legal or illegal.

As you might expect, the Motion Picture Association of America would like companies to be able to do this, so they could stop piracy. They say net neutrality will cause them to lose the tools to stop piracy. Others in the industry favor net neutrality, out of fear it would affect independent film making. People use tools like BitTorrent for illegal downloading, but more and more it’s used for legal movie distribution too.

The problem at the moment, I think, is awareness. If Hollywood really gets into this, it might be another artists vs. the studios story. With the artists seeking total freedom and the studios doing what will make them the most money, which is probably regulating and controlling the internet.