Driven largely by fears of copyright lawsuits, more than 17 million Americans, or 14 percent of adult Internet users, have stopped downloading music over the Internet, a survey finds. But the overall percentage of people who say they currently do so has inched back up since November, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said in a study Sunday. A third of the former downloaders — nearly 6 million — say they stopped because of the highly publicized lawsuits filed by the recording industry since last summer against more than 1,000 users.
Many of the lawsuits have led to settlements of thousands of dollars each. Legally, recording labels can demand $150,000 per song for copyright infringement. Men and users ages 18-29 were the ones most likely to stop, the survey finds. The study does not distinguish between music downloaded illegally and songs bought through authorized sites such as iTunes. Seventeen percent of the current downloaders did say they are using paid services, though not necessarily as their exclusive source of online music.
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