Britons are taking advantage of file sharing technologies to download popular television shows from the US long before they reach TV screens in this country, according to new research.

A new report from Internet tracking company Envisional said that out of all downloads of pirated TV shows, 18% originate in the UK - placing the country well ahead of other nations. With a plethora of technologies available - ranging from IRC to newer protocols such as BitTorrent - it seems many Britons aren't prepared to wait often lengthy delays before first-run US programming makes it to British TV channels.

The most popular shows to be downloaded include Fox's 24 and ABC's Desperate Housewives.

Publishers of pirated TV shows "rip" the programmes, using some form of TV tuner or video capture device, encode it into a compressed file format, and then begin sharing it with other Internet users.

Moves are underway in the US to counteract piracy. In 2003, America's Federal Communications Commission ruled that broadcasters may encode all programmes on digital terrestrial television with a "broadcast flag" designed to hinder the "ripping" process. Moreover, the FCC ruled that all DTT receiving equipment containing demodulators must recognize and "give effect to" the flag - in other words, have procedures to hamper the sharing of recorded broadcast programmes on the Internet. The flag is scheduled to come into effect by July 1 this year, but will not apply to digital satellite or cable broadcasts. Furthermore, changes in the connections made between receiving devices and displays are being made; a slow shift away from analogue connections that effectively ignore any copy protection technologies is being made in favour of digital connections such as HDMI that can propagate rights management options through a technology known as HDCP (High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection). Such changes will eventually reduce the options available to people who publish pirated programmes on the net.

These changes, however, take time. Envisional's report suggested that the broadcasting industry should consider launching legal download services similar to those offer by record companies seeking to reduce the impact of pirated MP3-encoded copies of music.

Such a service is already in the works at the BBC. The corporation's "Interactive Media Player," better-known as iMP, was trialled last year, and used peer-to-peer distribution coupled with digital rights management techologies. It allowed viewers to download programmes and watch them up to eight days after airing. The iMP is expected to undergo a wider trial later in 2005.

A third option is also being used to combat piracy: lawsuits. Recently, the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) succeeded in shutting down a popular torrent site, LokiTorrent. Another site, Suprnova.org, shut down in December 2004 after the MPAA indicated its willingness to seek legal recourse against illegal sharing of movies.