“I wish you hadn’t told me you watched it illegally,” said Bonneville, choosing words that suggested he shouldn’t be writing dialogue for the nobleman otherwise known as the Earl of Grantham. “That’s really pissing me off. Shame on you. Be ashamed.”

Like so many other nerdy “Downton” fans, I also greedily consumed the Christmas special over the holidays in some dark corner of the Internet — but without feeling any such shame.

The reason? Over the past few years, with potential spoilers lurking behind every clicked Web link, rabid American fans of cult-friendly British programming have grown increasingly frustrated that television hasn’t truly gone global. Well into the age of YouTube, iTunes and on-demand viewing, obsessive fans are still thwarted by international restrictions that prevent them from accessing episodes as they become available, even on official sites. And the region-specific system of DVD coding still exists to drive all but the most tech-savvy Anglophiles from ordering copies when they are released overseas (as the second season of “Downton Abbey” was back in November).

Instead, fans are forced to make an outdated choice: Wait it out — sometimes for months — until new episodes of our favorite overseas shows make their U.S. debuts, or find pirated versions somewhere online that abet a ravenous craving to stuff their eyeholes with tweedy goodness. (The controversial SOPA bill, stalled indefinitely in Congress after protests, were aimed, in part, at stopping this kind of downloading. Sites like the Pirate Bay, hosted by overseas servers, often contain access to torrents of full seasons of shows; but truth is, a good Google search will turn up much of what you’re looking for, as well.)

With the old model of importing shows at the speed of a steamship chugging across the Atlantic as obsolete as Mr. Carson’s job in an industrialized Britain, and with few sensible solutions, it’s no surprise that a growing number of superfans feel like their piracy is justified. (Especially when PBS is free anyway! Who loses?)

“I only download when it’s something I just can’t bear to wait for,” says a Brooklyn-based friend of mine, who requested anonymity not for fear of getting outed as a mega-geek but of being charged with copyright infringement. A self-described “nerdy American Gen-Xer who grew up watching the classic ‘Doctor Who’ series when it aired on PBS in the ’70s and ’80s,” he has no qualms about using outlaw means to watch his pet programs, which include ITV’s “Downton Abbey” and the BBC’s boffo “Sherlock” adaptation.

He says that he does so for two logical reasons — for his own gratification, and so that he can geek out with his English friends and others who have viewed the shows as they air or shortly thereafter. But he also says that the versions that air here are subtly different than they were in the U.K.

“I’m kind of wary of waiting for British TV to show up on PBS or BBC America,” he says. “It’s not only the time lag that’s maddening, but the way those versions of the shows sometimes get edited. PBS rejiggered the first season of ‘Downton Abbey’ for reasons I still don’t understand, and BBC America sometimes cuts down shows to jam in more commercials and adds gratuitous intros or voice-overs that I have no use for.”