Here at the BBB offices we regularly download TV shows from other countries that are not available anywhere in the USA. Turns out that some bright Brits have figured out how to do the same thing. Only this time they are doing it to get American TV shows long before they ever get released on the other side of the pond:

According to Envisional, Britain accounts for about one-fifth of TV downloads through file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent and eDonkey, more than any other country, followed by Australia and the United States.

“Because there’s such a demand for U.S. TV, the UK is going to be the main downloader,” said Envisional research consultant David Price.

Popular U.S. television shows such as “The West Wing,” “The Sopranos” and “Friends” usually air in Britain months after they are broadcast stateside. For impatient fans, the Internet offers bootleg, advertisement-free programs that can be downloaded in a few hours over a high-speed connection.

Distribution is obsessed with restricting viewing to certain territories over windows of time but now any release is essentially a global release with the internet. Goodbye region coding…