Ed Sheeran’s + most pirated album in the UK

A new study by Musicmetric has revealed that Ed Sheeran’s + is the most illegally downloaded album in the UK, and Manchester is the UK capital of music piracy.

A new study by Musicmetric has revealed that Ed Sheeran’s + is the most pirated album in the UK.

The company, who monitor the global activity of BitTorrent files found that, during the first half of 2012, 43 million albums and singles were illegally downloaded in the UK. This means Britain is second only to the US, who topped the poll with 96,681,133 illegal music downloads for the same period.

Rizzle Kicks’ Stereo Typical is the second most illegally downloaded album in the UK, with Rihanna’s Talk That Talk in third place. Jessie J’s Who You Are and Olly Murs’ In Case You Didn’t Know also feature in the Top 5.

Manchester topped the poll for the most amount of illegal downloads per city or town (395,516) with Nottingham, Southampton, Liverpool and Sheffield making up the rest of the Top 5.

"According to their data, there are more illegal downloads in the UK still than there are legal purchases," Geoff Taylor, chief executive of The BPI, told the BBC. "[It] compares to about 240 million tracks that were sold legally. A lot of people are getting very rich from stealing other people's things. That's wrong, and we think that musicians deserve to be paid for what they do, just like everyone else."

The Top 20 most pirated albums in the UK are as follows:

01	Ed Sheeran	+
02	Rizzle Kicks	Stereo Typical
03	Rihanna	Talk That Talk
04	Jessie J	Who You Are
05	Olly Murs	In Case You Didn't Know
06	Emeli Sandé	Our Version of Events
07	Ben Howard	Every Kingdom
08	Chase & Status	No More Idols
09	Chris Brown	F.A.M.E
10	Gotye	Making Mirrors
11	Noel Gallagher’a High Flying Birds	Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
12	Drake	Take Care
13	Adele	21
14	Kanye West	Watch The Throne
15	Beyonce	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

According to the Official Charts Company’s sales data, the UK’s Top 20 biggest selling digital albums (ie; legally purchased) for that same period are as follows:

01	BORN TO DIE	LANA DEL REY
02	OUR VERSION OF EVENTS	EMELI SANDE
03	+	ED SHEERAN
04	21	ADELE
05	NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 81	VARIOUS ARTISTS
06	MYLO XYLOTO	COLDPLAY
07	NOTHING BUT THE BEAT	DAVID GUETTA
08	NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL RUNNING	VARIOUS ARTISTS
09	EVERY KINGDOM	BEN HOWARD
10	WHO YOU ARE	JESSIE J
11	CEREMONIALS	FLORENCE & THE MACHINE
12	WATCH THE THRONE	JAY-Z & KANYE WEST
13	LONELY ARE THE BRAVE	MAVERICK SABRE
14	KEEP CALM AND RELAX	VARIOUS ARTISTS
15	NOEL GALLAGHER'S HIGH FLYING BIRDS	NOEL GALLAGHER'S HIGH FLYING BIRDS
16	WHAT DID YOU EXPECT FROM THE VACCINES	VACCINES
17	TALK THAT TALK	RIHANNA
18	MAKING MIRRORS	GOTYE
19	NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 80	VARIOUS ARTISTS
20	EL CAMINO	BLACK KEYS

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ED SHEERAN