TORONTO — Fear of being slammed with an American lawsuit seems to have affected online behaviour across Canada.

A new study by Ipsos-Reid suggests the incidence of downloading songs last month was at its lowest point since 2000 - although the Canadian recording industry disputed the findings. The survey indicated that 32 per cent of Canadian adults with an Internet connection have downloaded at least one music file. That figure is down from 47 per cent in June 2002.

Among the various online activities tracked by Ipsos-Reid, downloading music was the only activity that saw a major drop. The reason, according to 41 per cent of respondents surveyed online, was lawsuits launched in the U.S., which targeted those who share music files on peer-to-peer services like KaZaA.

"There are a lot of people who didn't know if they could be sued or not, even though it was made abundantly clear that it was just Americans who were being sued," said Chris Ferneyhough, vice-president of Ipsos-Reid.

Forty-three per cent agreed with a statement that the Canadian Recording Industry Association's threats of legal action earlier this year caused them to download less frequently.

Despite the decrease over the past two years, Canadians are still more likely to have downloaded a track than American adults - 32 per cent versus 24 per cent respectively.

Ferneyhough attributed some of the difference to the higher number of paid services available in the U.S., including the popular ITunes and Napster.

The Canadian recording industry was quick to dismiss the results of the survey, saying their figures show downloading is just as popular an activity as ever.

"If it was actually true (that downloading decreased), then I would be very delighted today," said Graham Henderson, senior vice-president of business affairs for Universal Music Canada. The company says it has laid off dozens of staff because of revenue lost due to file swapping.

He said while it may be true that some people have stopped getting music for free, "our statistics show that the volume of downloads is actually unchanged. We're still seeing about 120,000 million downloads per month in Canada."

Henderson added that surveys such as this one provide inaccurate results because most people lie when asked if they've done something wrong. Also, the questionnaire didn't survey 13-to-17-year-olds, the major consumers of free peer-to-peer services.

"People are reluctant in surveys to admit to the activity because they know it's illegal," he said. "That has to be taken into account in polling."

Henderson admitted that he and other Canadian music executives are biased against such surveys out of fear the government will use them as a reason to delay implementing tougher copyright legislation that would give the industry the legal backing to go after file swappers.

The Ipsos-Reid results were based on answers by two groups of Canadians. The first consisted of 1,000 Canadians polled online between March 23 and 30. A further 1,000 people were surveyed over the phone between April 7 and 14, after a federal court decision which blocked the music industry from suing people who make music available on the Internet. The judge said downloading a song or making files available in shared directories does not constitute copyright infringement.

Ipsos-Reid said the poll was reliable within 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20, and that the respondents represented about 14 million Canadian adult Internet users who are online for one hour a week or more.