Beyonce’s New Album Pirated 240,000 Times

Beyoncé's new album, which has zoomed to the top of the Billboard sales charts, appears to also be popular on the file sharing charts as well — with nearly a quarter million copies pirated within the first week of its Dec. 13 debut, according to Musicmetric.
Had those copies been purchased, the album would have grossed an additional $3 million in sales. While it's certain that piracy eats into music revenue, it's difficult, if not impossible, to know what percentage of those illegal downloads would have displaced purchases, since not everyone who pirated a free copy would have bought the album if it weren't available via file sharing sites.
Nevertheless, the singer's self-titled album has been a red hot performer, having sold 991,000 copies in its first 10 days, placing it on top of the Billboard 200 chart for two straight weeks.
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