Two University of Otago staff were warned this year for downloading movies on the university's internet.
In response to an Official Information Act request on breaches of its internet use policy, a spokeswoman said sites - for example, pornography - which would breach the policy were blocked.
This had resulted in only two university staff having been sent warnings for breaching the policy since 2011, both this year.
One was warned for downloading a movie in breach of copyright and the other related to downloading a movie using peer to peer software.
However, in the same period, 1720 pieces of correspondence had been sent to content-loving students in residential colleges for going above the 30 gigabyte per month cap.
The number of letters sent climbed from 393 to 870 last year before dropping dramatically to 45 in a period taking up most of this year.
A spokeswoman said there was ''no clear reason why the internet stats are down, but clearly it's a very positive trend reflected by much improved behaviour''.
• The university implemented a system which blocked websites and downloads which breached its internet use policy in 2012.
This caused the volume of its ''off-campus network'' traffic to decrease by 32% from 464,159 gigabytes in 2011 to 315,847 gigabytes in 2012.
Last year, traffic stayed steady at 315,164 gigabytes.
