Ed Sheeran’s + is the most illegally downloaded album in the UK.
According to a recent study, Sheeran’s album is currently being illegally downloaded 55,000 times a month. Bloody hell!
Sheeran beat the likes of Rizzle Kicks, Rihanna and Lana Del Rey to the, erm, not-so-coveted title…
Still, it seems Sheeran doesn’t care, just as long as fans come and see him live. Sheeran told the ol’ BBC:
“There’s a decent balance – you can live off your sales and you can allow people to illegally download it and come to your gigs. My gig tickets are £18 and my album is £8, so it’s all relative.”
The study, conducted by MusicMetric, also found that UK music fans were responsible for 43,263,582 illegal downloads in the first six months of 2012 alone!
Manchester is the city downloading the most illegal music, with Nottingham and Southampton coming close behind. Tut tut!
The chief executive of The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Geoff Taylor, isn’t too pleased about all of this:
“There are more illegal downloads in the UK still than there are legal purchases. 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.”
Hear hear!
Check out Ed Sheeran’s “The A Team,” below. And remember to bloomin’ buy it if you like it!
