According to a survey done by industry analysts Musicmetric, Rihanna and Bruno Mars were the most illegally downloaded artists for 2013. Both artists had their hit songs downloaded at least 5.4 million times this year, despite neither singer releasing an album in the past 12 months.
Justin Timberlake and Daft Punk each had songs downloaded over 4 million times. Some of the other most illegally downloaded artists this year were rappers Jay Z, Drake, Kanye West, Eminem and Flo Rida. In addition, Beyoncé was placed in the Top 20 of Musicmetric’s survey after she reportedly lost $4 million in sales when 240,000 copies of her most recent album were downloaded within ten days of its release.
Musicmetric also found that its Top 20 pirated artists were downloaded 64.5 million times via BitTorrent in the past 12 months.
As for television, HBO’s Game of Thrones took the crown for being the most illegally downloaded television show for 2013, according to TorrentFreak. This is the second year in a row the fantasy drama has earned the “honor.” Its third-season finale was downloaded over 5.9 million times this year.
The makers of Games of Thrones do not seem very concerned about the show being pirated. Director David Petrarca previously said that illegal downloading helped bring “cultural buzz” about the show. Even Jeff Bewkes, CEO of HBO’s parent company Time Warner, seems to support illegal downloading of its episodes, who stated last year that being “most-pirated” was “better than an Emmy.”
Coming in second this year on the most pirated list with 4.2 million downloads was AMC’s crime drama series Breaking Bad, which aired its final season this year. Another AMC series, The Walking Dead, came in third with 3.6 million downloads.
Check out the full list of the Top 10 illegally downloaded TV shows worldwide for 2013:
- Game of Thrones (HBO), 5.9 million
- Breaking Bad (AMC), 4.2 million
- The Walking Dead (AMC), 3.6 million
- The Big Bang Theory (CBS), 3.4 million
- Dexter (Showtime), 3.1 million
- How I Met Your Mother (CBS), 3 million
- Suits (USA), 2.6 million
- Homeland (Showtime), 2.4 million
- Vikings (History), 2.3 million
- Arrow (CW), 2.2 million
