Drake and Future Are the Most Illegally Downloaded Artists in Music

Illegal downloading has been a hot-button issue in the music industry since at least the turn of the century, when peer-to-peer file sharing was decimating record sales. And while it has certainly changed how young listeners discover new music--and how artists and labels themselves get singles to their fans--new data seems to suggest that adjusting for the method of consumption also changes who's on top. According to research from SeatSmart, the albums that hit #1 on Billboard aren't necessarily the ones that the most people are scouring the Internet for. Drake and Future, the two artists whose work has been most often illegally downloaded this year, represent both sides of the coin.

Drake, whose If You're Reading This It's Too Late was certified Platinum by the RIAA despite being a surprise mixtape with no advance singles, sets the bar this year as the artist with the most bootlegs. But Future, who joins him on their full-length collaboration What a Time To Be Alive, outpaces him in terms of downloads per days his record has been available. Dirty Sprite 2, which became the Atlanta rapper's first #1 album when it dropped this July, has been ripped over 80,000 times already; If You're Reading This is approaching 275,000, having been available since mid-February. To see more extensive breakdowns of the data and comparisons to the commercially-sanctioned charts, check out the charts and lists at SeatSmart.