James R. Bottum, vice president for information technology and CIO at Purdue University, opted not to ban P2P software outright but instead to discourage it. First, he and his staff started educating students about why exchanging copyrighted material is not acceptable. Then they limited the amount of bandwidth that any one student could consume, with a process known as traffic shaping. When a student gets close to his bandwidth quota - which is sufficient for typical e-mail and Web surfing but not enough to serve up Seinfeld to everyone in the northern hemisphere - his connection slows down.

Although Bottum won't share specifics, he says the process has paid off. "If you have 80 percent of your bandwidth chewed up by people dragging music and movies around, is that what you want to spend your money on?" Bottum asks. And if you're still not sure of the answer, just call the RIAA or MPAA.