In further evidence that an increasing number of music listeners are illegally downloading tunes, a new study of BitTorrent file-sharing programs over the first six months of 2012 finds that artists like Gotye and the Black Keys are among those most pirated around the world.

Utilizing the Musicmetric Digital Music Index, the study revealed that the United States was the country performing the most downloads at 96,681,133, more than double the second-place country, the United Kingdom, at 43,263,582. The Top 5 countries are rounded out by Italy, Canada and Brazil.

While Rihanna’s Talk That Talk album was the single-most downloaded release of the first half of this year at over a million (1,228,313), Gotye’s Making Mirrors album came in at Number 4 on the list with 903,603 global downloads over the same time period. Gotye’s ubiquitous single with Kimbra, “Somebody That I Used to Know” was the eight-most downloaded song at 683,123.

“It shows that illegal downloading remains a significant problem,” said Geoff Taylor, chief executive of UK music industry organization the BPI to BBC News. “It is having a significant effect on investment in new music. That remains our serious concern.”

While much of the list is made of up of pop and R&B artists such as Drake and Adele, Akron, Ohio, blues-rock duo the Black Keys clocked it at Number 11, with their most recent full-length El Camino generating well over half a million downloads at 649,641.

–Scott T. Sterling, CBS Local

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