Bruno Mars has topped a list of the world's most illegally download music artists of the last year.

The US star, who released his sophomore effort 'Unorthodox Jukebox' in December 2012, was the subject of 5.78 million downloads.

The data was released by Musicmetric, who examined activity on the file sharing network Bit Torrent.

Rihanna was the second most pirated artist with 5.41 million downloads whilst 'Get Lucky' hitmakers Daft Punk were third with 4.21 million.

Other popular artists included Justin Timberlake, Flo Rida and Eminem.

Mars meanwhile is set to continue his meteoric rise to fame with a performance at the 2014 Super Bowl event in New Jersey on February 2.

The event gains massive worldwide interest and a 30-second advert during the game has a price of $4 million.