Australians are world’s biggest Torrent users

September 17, 2012

The world’s biggest downloaders of BitTorrent files have been revealed – with the US, UK and Italy the worst offenders in terms of sheer volume.

Musicmetric’s first ever Digital Music Index looks at the volume of file-sharing on the BitTorrent portal across the world in the first six months of 2012.

The US leads the way with little under 100 million separate downloads in the period. Because many of these downloads would have been made up of multiple songs, it is estimated that a whopping 775 million separate tracks were downloaded in the US in the six months.

However, when the statistics are looked at in terms of downloads per capita – i.e the average number of downloads per head – Australia is No.1 in the world, with more than 19 million downloads shared amongst a population of 21 million people.

Oz is ahead of Ireland (3.4m downloads), Slovenia (1.4m), Canada (23m) and the UK (43m) in the per capita list, making its citizens the heaviest illegal downloaders in the world.

Rihanna’s Talk That Talk was the world’s most-pirated album on BitTorrent in the six-month period.

Matt Mason, executive director at BitTorrent said: “Musicmetric’s findings offer a fascinating insight into the realities of the market which are essential if we want to see the music industry get back to its peak. These figures show for the first time that blocking the Pirate Bay had zero effect on piracy.

“It’s short-sighted to think that we can simply tell people to stop and they will, but great data like this will help companies build better services and platforms that empower artists to distribute their work into the BitTorrent ecosystem in ways that make sense for them,.

“Consumers have used the BitTorrent protocol for over decade because it’s the best way to move large files. That’s true for musicians too. The challenge is building the right business models on top of the technology, which is something we’re very committed to.”

Top 50 countries for total BitTorrent downloads during first half of 2012 from Jan to June, ranked by total volume:

	Country Name	Total downloads	Approx Songs+	Population
1	United States	96,681,133	775,382,687	313,232,044
2	United Kingdom	43,263,582	346,973,928	62,698,362
3	Italy	33,158,943	265,934,723	61,016,804
4	Canada	23,959,924	192,158,590	34,030,586
5	Brazil	19,724,522	158,190,666	194,037,075
6	Australia	19,232,252	154,242,661	21,766,711
7	Spain	10,303,633	82,635,137	46,754,784
8	India	8,964,360	71,894,167	1,189,172,906
9	France	8,398,550	67,356,371	65,102,719
10	Philippines	8,380,208	67,209,268	101,833,938
11	Mexico	7,522,056	60,326,889	115,017,631
12	Netherlands	6,671,624	53,506,424	16,847,007
13	Portugal	5,607,910	44,975,438	10,760,305
14	Poland	5,052,277	40,519,262	38,441,588
15	Greece	4,933,478	39,566,494	10,760,136
16	Hungary	4,460,855	35,776,057	97,976,062
17	Chile	4,213,851	33,795,085	16,888,760
18	Romania	4,155,863	33,330,021	21,904,551
19	Sweden	4,083,279	32,747,898	9,088,728
20	Belgium	3,878,173	31,102,947	10,431,477
21	Ireland	3,434,737	27,546,591	4,670,976
22	Germany	3,281,449	26,317,221	81,471,834
23	Israel	2,874,749	23,055,487	7,473,052
24	Russia	2,831,255	22,706,665	138,739,892
25	Norway	2,827,508	22,676,614	4,691,849
26	Argentina	2,802,927	22,479,475	41,769,726
27	Thailand	2,640,961	21,180,507	66,720,153
28	Turkey	2,568,942	20,602,915	78,785,548
29	Algeria	2,339,244	18,760,737	34,586,184
30	Croatia	2,305,095	18,486,862	4,483,804
31	United Arab Emirates	1,986,051	15,928,129	8,264,070
32	Singapore	1,952,233	15,656,909	4,740,737
33	South Africa	1,854,976	14,876,908	49,004,031
34	Finland	1,702,397	13,653,224	5,259,250
35	Malaysia	1,660,040	13,313,521	28,728,607
36	South Korea	1,641,653	13,166,057	48,754,657
37	Saudi Arabia	1,546,147	12,400,099	26,161,703
38	Morocco	1,524,650	12,227,693	31,968,361
39	Switzerland	1,476,702	11,843,150	7,639,961
40	Slovenia	1,416,433	11,359,793	2,000,092
41	Japan	1,373,101	11,012,270	126,475,664
42	Austria	1,338,287	10,733,062	8,217,280
43	Indonesia	1,313,495	10,534,230	245,613,043
44	Serbia	1,223,308	9,810,930	7,310,555
45	Egypt	1,210,463	9,707,913	82,079,636
46	Colombia	1,197,248	9,601,929	44,725,543
47	Pakistan	1,083,145	8,686,823	187,342,721
48	China	1,048,722	8,410,750	1,336,718,015
49	New Zealand	984,079	7,892,314	4,290,347
50	Puerto Rico	846,877	6,791,954	3,989,13

Top 60 countries ranked by total unique downloads during the first half of 2012:

	Worldwide	Unique downloads	Percentage
1	United States	18,690,819	16.9
2	United Kingdom	9,193,593	8.3
3	Italy	8,281,086	7.5
4	Brazil	7,096,462	6.4
5	Australia	4,386,232	4.0
6	Canada	4,184,900	3.8
7	India	4,003,870	3.6
8	Spain	3,568,069	3.2
9	France	3,539,075	3.2
10	Mexico	2,287,113	2.1
11	Poland	2,064,847	1.9
12	Greece	1,852,284	1.7
13	Russia	1,771,740	1.6
14	Turkey	1,763,755	1.6
15	Portugal	1,718,844	1.6
16	Sweden	1,508,076	1.4
17	Germany	1,475,373	1.3
18	Netherlands	1,413,420	1.3
19	Chile	1,367,972	1.2
20	Belgium	1,308,089	1.2
21	Argentina	1,283,110	1.2
22	Saudi Arabia	1,121,590	1.0
23	Romania	1,111,064	1.0
24	Hungary	1,055,290	1.0
25	Philippines	1,003,416	0.9
26	Thailand	984,806	0.9
27	South Korea	932,611	0.8
28	Israel	867,354	0.8
29	Malaysia	832,647	0.8
30	Norway	808,058	0.7
31	Croatia	801,748	0.7
32	Ireland	748,910	0.7
33	Pakistan	735,284	0.7
34	China	714,208	0.6
35	South Africa	681,125	0.6
36	Finland	675,865	0.6
37	United Arab Emirates	624,319	0.6
38	Serbia	619,620	0.6
39	Algeria	573,565	0.5
40	Egypt	558,446	0.5
41	Colombia	519,842	0.5
42	Singapore	509,200	0.5
43	Japan	507,323	0.5
44	Austria	471,310	0.4
45	Switzerland	464,402	0.4
46	Ukraine	442,792	0.4
47	Morocco	421,720	0.4
48	Indonesia	413,028	0.4
49	Taiwan	382,666	0.3
50	Iran	337,761	0.3
51	Denmark	333,585	0.3
52	New Zealand	333,430	0.3
53	Vietnam	332,602	0.3
54	Slovenia	315,150	0.3
55	Peru	245,692	0.2
56	Tunisia	242,654	0.2
57	Venezuela	240,927	0.2
58	Hong Kong	232,061	0.2
59	Slovakia	205,054	0.2
60	Bulgaria	204,621	0.2

Top 50 countries for total BitTorrent downloads during first half of 2012 per capita:

	Country Name	Total downloads	Approx Songs+	Population
1	Australia	19,232,252	154,242,661	21,766,711
2	Ireland	3,434,737	27,546,591	4,670,976
3	Slovenia	1,416,433	11,359,793	2,000,092
4	Canada	23,959,924	192,158,590	34,030,586
5	United Kingdom	43,263,582	346,973,928	62,698,362
6	Norway	2,827,508	22,676,614	4,691,849
7	Italy	33,158,943	265,934,723	61,016,804
8	Portugal	5,607,910	44,975,438	10,760,305
9	Croatia	2,305,095	18,486,862	4,483,804
10	Greece	4,933,478	39,566,494	10,760,136
11	Sweden	4,083,279	32,747,898	9,088,728
12	Singapore	1,952,233	15,656,909	4,740,737
13	Netherlands	6,671,624	53,506,424	16,847,007
14	Israel	2,874,749	23,055,487	7,473,052
15	Belgium	3,878,173	31,102,947	10,431,477
16	Finland	1,702,397	13,653,224	5,259,250
17	United States	96,681,133	775,382,687	313,232,044
18	Chile	4,213,851	33,795,085	16,888,760
19	United Arab Emirates	1,986,051	15,928,129	8,264,070
20	New Zealand	984,079	7,892,314	4,290,347
21	Spain	10,303,633	82,635,137	46,754,784
22	Puerto Rico	846,877	6,791,954	3,989,133
23	Switzerland	1,476,702	11,843,150	7,639,961
24	Romania	4,155,863	33,330,021	21,904,551
25	Serbia	1,223,308	9,810,930	7,310,555
26	Austria	1,338,287	10,733,062	8,217,280
27	Poland	5,052,277	40,519,262	38,441,588
28	France	8,398,550	67,356,371	65,102,719
29	Brazil	19,724,522	158,190,666	194,037,075
30	Philippines	8,380,208	67,209,268	101,833,938
31	Algeria	2,339,244	18,760,737	34,586,184
32	Argentina	2,802,927	22,479,475	41,769,726
33	Mexico	7,522,056	60,326,889	115,017,631
34	Saudi Arabia	1,546,147	12,400,099	26,161,703
35	Malaysia	1,660,040	13,313,521	28,728,607
36	Morocco	1,524,650	12,227,693	31,968,361
37	Hungary	4,460,855	35,776,057	97,976,062
38	Germany	3,281,449	26,317,221	81,471,834
39	Thailand	2,640,961	21,180,507	66,720,153
40	South Africa	1,854,976	14,876,908	49,004,031
41	South Korea	1,641,653	13,166,057	48,754,657
42	Turkey	2,568,942	20,602,915	78,785,548
43	Colombia	1,197,248	9,601,929	44,725,543
44	Russia	2,831,255	22,706,665	138,739,892
45	Egypt	1,210,463	9,707,913	82,079,636
46	Japan	1,373,101	11,012,270	126,475,664
47	India	8,964,360	71,894,167	1,189,172,906
48	Pakistan	1,083,145	8,686,823	187,342,721
49	Indonesia	1,313,495	10,534,230	245,613,043
50	China	1,048,722	8,410,750	1,336,718,015

Music Business Worldwide

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