Scorpion Kings, DJ Zinhle, MFR Souls are among the top ‘Most-Pirated’ artists during the coronavirus lockdown

Piracy has always been a setback in the music industry, long back from the days of re-recording from Cassettes, CDs, and now it is on another phase with hoax sites on the blow, offering illegal downloads to copyrighted music.

Digital platforms like iTunes, Spotify and Deezer are most dominant in this digital age and more artists rely on these platforms to publish their music. Since the lockdown has been ordered, as one of the measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, the Recording Industry of South Africa (RISA) announced that digital music piracy has skyrocketed during this time.

According to Sowetan, the list of most pirated songs includes eMcimbini by Scorpion Kings, Love Letter by Blaq Diamond, Tender Love by Sha Sha feat. Scorpion Kings, Umlilo by DJ Zinhle, Love You Tonight by MFR Souls as well as the Joyous 24 album by Joyous Celebration.

“To chase away the lockdown blues that the country is going through, South Africans have turned to music for solace and companionship. Regrettably, this has resulted in an unfortunate and alarming increase of online music piracy,” RiSA CEO Nhlanhla Sibisi said.

RISA encouraged that fans should download and stream music from legitimate platforms.

“We ask music lovers to support real talent. Musicians make a living from sales of their music and keeping piracy alive will only result in an impoverished music scene,” Sibisi said.

The latest data shows that music that was downloaded legally has taken a dip during the lockdown. Before the lockdown, on average 8,170 songs per week were downloaded legally – that number had dropped to 7,221.

source: sowetanlive

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