“Today’s report by Musicmetric should provide the Government with the jolt it needs to tackle illegal sites online, and ensure that digital literacy includes a stark warning of the dangers of illegal downloading.

“The UK ranks second behind only the US in numbers of illegal downloads demonstrating that the Government should be doing more to protect consumers by tackling illegal websites and ensuring that they are not allowed to appear credible with advertisements, and payment logos.

“In addition, all of the towns and cities within the top 10 downloads per person have a large student population. If the Government are serious about tackling online piracy, this must go hand in hand with promoting digital literacy within our schools, colleges and universities”.