Net Results: Although some tabloid journalists may not agree, it's generally accepted that the job of journalists is to report the news rather than make it, writes  John Collins.

This thought flashed through my mind recently when I answered the phone to a representative of BT Ireland. The voice on the other end asked me to confirm that I had a broadband service from BT. After answering in the affirmative he dropped his bombshell: "We've been contacted by Paramount Movies to say that you've been sharing a copyrighted title of theirs, An Inconvenient Truth."

I was shocked. It's not as if I'm one of those people who has to order an extra hard drive or two to accommodate all the pirated music and films they've grabbed online. In total, I have six movies on my home PC that I have not purchased. I thought Paramount would be more interested in those factories in China churning out the latest Hollywood releases on DVD for a dollar a go. But, unlike the music industry, which maintains it goes after only "serial uploaders" of copyrighted material it owns, the movie studios seem to be adopting a zero-tolerance approach.

As a result, the act of downloading Al Gore's documentary on climate change from a Swedish website using the hugely popular BitTorrent file sharing software had attracted the attention of Hollywood's copyright police, who in turn had contacted BT Ireland.

But is what I did actually any worse than borrowing a copy of a DVD from a friend and viewing it? The studios may say that it's a matter of economics - by the time they release the DVD for purchase the title is no longer pulling money in at the box office - but surely in this age of globalisation trying to put controls over the distribution of material across international boundaries is an anachronism?

I am not one of those idealists who believes all content should be free. As a journalist I don't get paid unless you buy a copy of this newspaper or subscribe to the website on which it is published. But I am a pragmatist and I do realise that people's media consumption habits are changing fast. If there was a service available where I could have paid a few euro to download An Inconvenient Truth legally I would have happily availed of it.

I contacted BT to find out if it gets many of these kinds of communications from copyright holders. In a short statement, it said it would normally test the point with Paramount to ensure its information is correct, but once BT is put on notice it is obliged to investigate.

BT also pointed out that subscribers are obliged to obey the rules of its service, which "means legally, not breaching any rules/laws of copyright, ie, downloading content without the permission of the original author or paying the necessary fee to use such material".

My point to the movie industry is that it is not providing a service that allows me to pay a fee to use the material - at least not in Ireland. Since my phone call from BT, BitTorrent's creators have done a deal with some of the biggest movie studios to offer films and television shows for rental or purchase by download, but currently it is a US-only service.

In addition, new services such as Joost and Babelgum (which is headquartered in Dublin) are using the internet to deliver a range of TV and video content to PCs.

With deals being cut for online distribution, mostly in the US so far, it now seems the film industry is turning the focus of its anti-piracy efforts overseas.

But even before it turned its attentions to me, I would have asked if going after individual users who have downloaded one or two films is really good for business. At the Midem music industry conference in Cannes earlier this year, representatives of the movie and recording industries debated the pros and cons of digital rights management with Consumer Electronics Association president Gary Shapiro.

The debate got heated, which led to Shapiro coming out with this classic rebuff: "I don't make you look evil; your lawsuits against old people around the country make you look evil."

Now, I may not be a little old lady but neither am I a serial downloader of copyrighted material. I made a decision to download for free something for which no online channel existed for me to pay. Maybe that was a wrong decision but it's one that more and more internet users are making.

BitTorrent, depending on what survey you listen to, now accounts for between 15-30 per cent of all traffic on the internet. Hollywood needs to wake up to the new reality. It's 2007 and this is how their (potential) customers want to watch films. Apple is selling the Apple TV set-top box from its Irish store, which allows you to access music, video, photos and podcasts on your television over a wireless network.

What content from their PCs do the studios think people are going to watch on their TVs? It really begs the question whether they have learned anything from their friends in the music industry. In the late 1990s, like many others, I was a heavy user of the Napster music sharing service in its freewheeling days. I mostly used it to grab old classics that I owned on vinyl or tape and now wanted in digital format. Sure, I grabbed some stuff that I didn't own, but I discovered new artists through Napster and, if I liked their music, I generally went out and bought it.

Today, I have purchased about 20 albums from iTunes and have a monthly subscription to the eMusic download service. My point is that because I started using illegal services when there was no alternative, I was happy to pay for the commercial services when they came along - particularly when I recently purchased The Good, The Bad and The Queen on iTunes for €9.99, but paid the ridiculous sum of €19.99 for a CD version as a present.

While I wait for Hollywood to realise it can't resist the march of technology, I've removed the offending material from my PC. Becoming a martyr for copyright change by being dragged through the courts by Paramount may have won me friends in certain circles, but it would have done little for my career as a journalist.