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Rihanna Among 2013's Most Pirated Artists

Rihanna and Bruno Mars top list of most illegally downloaded music of the year.

Rihanna is officially one of 2013's most pirated artists, reports RollingStone.com

The 25-year-old's music was illegally downloaded more than five million times over the course of a year, tying her with Bruno Mars for the title, according to Musicmetric data compiled from file-sharing outlet Bit Torrent. 

While Rih Rih and Mars filled the top spots, others on the Top 20 Most Pirated list included Daft Punk, Justin Timberlake, Flo Rida, Kanye West, Eminem, Jay ZDrake and Pitbull, who rounded out the Top 10 with 3.14 million illegal downloads.

Although Musicmetrics doesn't "condone" illegal file sharing, the data compiled can potentially help artists in tactics to attract fans, executive Gregory Mead said. "Back in the day, people went into record shops to try records before they bought them. Nowadays, they download or stream a track and then perhaps buy a download or a gig ticket." 

Besides their year-end list, Musicmetrics also exposed illegal downloads of Beyoncé's self-titled fifth album. The Dec. 13 release was pirated more than 240,000 times within 10 days, costing the superstar $3 million in sales.   

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  (Photo: Stefan Gosatti/Getty Images)

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