Music piracy cuts into the profits earned by labels and artists and in the case of several top musicians those profits are hurt more than their peers. A recent study that utilized the musicmetric Digital Music Index has found that 2012 has been especially bad for  Rihanna, Adele, Gotye and Drake in terms of illegal music downloads.

The study specifically examined BitTorrent file-sharing programs to determine the number of illegal downloads since the start of the year.

Researchers discovered that the United States is the central hub of piracy with downloads totaling 96,681,133. The United States more than doubled second-place piracy hub the United Kingdom which recorded 43,263,582 illegal downloads.

Rounding out the Top 5 pirating countries are Italy, Canada and Brazil.

The album with the most pirated material was Rihanna’s Talk That Talk with over one million (1,228,313) downloads.

Gotye’s Making Mirrors managed a fourth place finish with 903,603 global downloads while his “Somebody That I Used to Know” was the eight-most downloaded song with 683,123 illegal grabs.

Speaking to BBC News Geoff Taylor, chief executive of UK music industry organization the BPI noted:

“It shows that illegal downloading remains a significant problem … It is having a significant effect on investment in new music. That remains our serious concern.”

Pirated songs have become a major problem for the music industry however artists have reaped the benefits of increased ticket prices which have created millions of dollars in additional revenue.

Do you think pirated material is ruining the music industry or does putting music in the hands of fans ultimately lead to more profit generating ticket sales?

World’s Most Pirated Artists: Rihanna, Gotye, Adele And Drake is a post from: The Inquisitr