New report shows the U.S. leading in illegal downloads worldwide

By Austin Bernhardt | September 17, 2012 | 9:55pm

Aux Features Music

The data- and trend-mapping company Musicmetric has released the first edition of its Digital Music Index—an analysis of who's downloading what, where—and the U.S.A. is No. 1, as always. More specifically, the United States has been ranked No. 1 worldwide in the number of music files downloaded illegally, racking up almost 97 million in the first half of this year alone. The United Kingdom comes in a distant second with just over 43 million downloads. (TorrentFreak adds that Manchester is the most active city in the U.K. London comes in at a paltry 20th.)

According to Complex, Drake is the most illegally downloaded artist in America, which is quite the bittersweet accomplishment. Oddly enough, Kanye West is the most illegally downloaded artist in Canada, with Americans and Canadians apparently crossing each other's borders to steal each other's rap stars.