The digitalization of Hollywood is an issue that leaves many in the industry rushing to stop it while others can’t cease salivating at the profits to be reaped from it.

Many believe that one day the general public will be able to download first-run movies from the Internet. This thought sent many Hollywood insiders hurrying to Capitol Hill with hopes to stop film downloading dead in its tracks.

NIU communication professor Will Anderson has a different view than many Hollywood elites. Aside from teaching, Anderson has written an award-winning radio drama and plays guitar for the Mississippi Blues Band. When asked how he would feel if his own copyrighted material was shared online, he had different views.

“I’m a writer, I’m a musician, I do it for the love of the art,” Anderson said. “If people are doing [file sharing] for their own artistic reasons or to show to friends – I find no problem with it. In a situation where someone is profiting off of it, as if they pirated it, I don’t have any sympathy for them.”

Hollywood executives refuse to see any plus side to online swapping of their products. To stop the trading of films, industry executives have proposed some ideas. Industry insiders want the ability to stop computers from playing movies without the approval of the copyright owner of the film. This would require extreme copy-protection technology and put Hollywood executives in total control of what the public can and can’t see.

But what about DVDs that are playable on computers? There’s an answer for that as well. The music industry recently threatened to release CDs that are not playable on computers. The film industry is using this as a possible option in response to consumers uploading movies from DVDs on their home computers and trading them via the Internet.

These copy-protected DVDs could create a terrible uprising of consumers against the Hollywood powers that be. These steps by executives could force many to argue that they are attempting to take away freedoms of consumers.

These concerns and arguments recently drove Disney CEO Michael Eisner to Capitol Hill to argue the industry’s case.

“Just as our society is beginning to address other security threats posed by the Internet, we must address the security of copyrights,” he said in front of representatives from the House and the Senate. “But there needs to be a commitment – government, in industry, and among the general populace – that theft will not be tolerated in any form, whether it’s someone shoplifting in a store or downloading on the ‘Net.”

These comments have driven many students even farther away from sympathizing with Hollywood executives.

“I’m not surprised by the comments,” NIU graduate assistant Jeff Oman said. “In the 1950s when recordable vinyl was introduced, there was the same uproar going on. There was a copyright issue because people were recording the radio shows they liked to listen to.”

The ’50s were not the only decade plagued by copyright debates. The same flocking of Tinseltown CEOs occurred in the 1970s with the introduction of the VCR. The television industry actually filed lawsuits to try and stop people from taping television programs because they feared it would put them out of business. Disney used licensing techniques to try and stop the renting of videos.

“When new technology is introduced, it’s always the same arguments – recycled and rehashed,” Oman added. “It’s silly – they shun it instead of embrace it.”