Monday, September 17, 2012 3:39am ET by  
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Ed Sheeran's '+' named most illegally downloaded album in the UK

Ed Sheeran's '+' has been revealed as the most pirated album in the UK.

In a new study conducted by Musicmetric over the first half of 2012, the singer-songwriter's debut album was the most illegally downloaded collection of music via BitTorrent.

In second place on the list is Rizzle Kicks' 'Stereo Typical', whilst Rihanna's 'Talk That Talk' landed in third.

The top five of the list is completed by Jessie J's 'Who You Are' and Olly Murs' 'In Case You Didn't Know' in fourth and fifth place respectively.

43 million albums and singles were pirated in the first half of 2012, whilst Manchester was the worst offending city with a total of 395,516 illegal downloads.

Chief Executive of the BPI Geoff Taylor said about the findings:

"According to their data, there are more illegal downloads in the UK still than there are legal purchases. [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."

 

 

 

Watch Ed Sheeran's 'Drunk' video below: