A new report reveals the extent of illegal downloading in the UK – with Liverpool one of the top cities for sharing music illegally.
Liverpool is the fourth highest city in the UK for levels of piracy based on downloads per person.
The inaugural Digital Music Index, produced by monitoring service Musicmetric, has analysed huge swathes of illegal downloads.
And Liverpool finished fourth, behind Manchester, Nottingham and Southampton in the findings published this morning.
The service logged the approximate locations of users obtaining music using BitTorrent – a method of getting files by downloading from many users at the same time.
The data suggests Ed Sheeran – with his album + is, so far this year, the most illegally downloaded artist in 459 of the 694 cities, towns and villages covered by the research.
Rizzle Kicks‘ debut effort Stereo Typical came in second, with Rihanna‘s Talk That Talk in third, Jessie J‘s Who You Are in fourth and Olly Murs in fifth with In Case You Didn’t Know.
Emeli Sande‘s Our Version Of Events, which is the biggest selling album of 2012 in the UK, is in sixth, with Ben Howard, Chase And Status, Chris Brown and Gotye taking the other spots in the Top 10.
Elsewhere, a diverse range of musical tastes can be found.
Such as the people on the Isle of Wight, whose most illegally download artist – based on monthly averages – is trumpet-playing crooner Louis Armstrong.
Meanwhile, in the Scottish Borders town of Galashiels, residents appear to have an arguably refined taste in music – their most popular artist is The Smiths.
By simply looking at the number of illegal downloads in each area, London predictably comes out on top.
In the first half of the year, over seven million files – mostly full albums – were downloaded illegally in the capital through peer-to-peer file sharing, says Musicmetric.
Second for volume was Birmingham (984,336 downloads per month) and then Glasgow (610,271 downloads).
But you get a more telling statistic when you take the population into account.
Per person, Musicmetric found Manchester to be the most prolific city for piracy – with Nottingham and Southampton coming second and third.
The United States tops the bill as the country with the most illegal shares, with the UK in second position.
You can find out who is the most illegally shared artist in your area here.
Highest Number Of Illegal Downloads By Location Arrange Per Capita
1. Manchester (1,317,012)
2. Nottingham (598,621)
3. Southampton (480,151)
4. Liverpool (927,535
5. Sheffield (748,301)
6. Leicester (487,406)
7. Stoke-on-trent (380,872)
8. Glasgow (1,037,934)
9. Cardiff (348,603)
10. Leeds (566,589)
11. Bristol (424,790)
12. Edinburgh (519,736)
13. Wolverhampton (257,840)
14. Derby (195,632)
15. Reading (190,053)
16. Bradford (233,339)
17. Kingston upon Hull (256,479)
18. Birmingham (803,741)
19. Coventry (198,481)
20. London (4,565,502)
Most Illegally Downloaded Artist
1. Ed Sheeran – + (Plus)
2. Rizzle Kicks – Stereo Typical
3. Rihanna – Talk That Talk
4. Jessie J – Who You Are
5. Olly Murs – In Case You Didn’t Know
6. Emeli Sandé – Our Version of Events
7. Ben Howard – Every Kingdom
8. Chase & Status – No More Idols
9. Chris Brown – F.A.M.E
10. Gotye – Making Mirrors
11. Noel Gallagher – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds
12. Drake – Take Care
13. Adele – 21
14. Kanye West – Watch The Throne
15. Beyoncé – 4
16. Snow Patrol – Fallen Empires
17. The Script – Science & Faith
18. James Morrison – The Awakening
19. JLS – Jukebox
20. Florence and The Machine – Ceremonials
