LOS ANGELES — As a college freshman, Will Mount feasted on the free but mostly illegal music available through online file-sharing software such as Kazaa.

Now a senior, Mount has seen his free music fix become legal, thanks to an initiative by American University in Washington, D.C., to dissuade students from using its computer network to illegally swap music online.

If the music industry only had more like Mount. Many students still prefer to plumb file-sharing networks, despite efforts to make legal music available on campuses for free.

Shifting from the file-sharing free-for-all to a licensed music service largely has been positive for Mount, but he can understand why some students shun it. For instance, he can't transfer the songs to his iPod music player.

"If you want to get the music in your iPod, you have to go to other places to buy it," said Mount, 21, an Ohio native. "Or you are going to have to do something illegal to get it."

Limited song selection and other restrictions also are factors.

American University is one of about 50 colleges that have begun providing students with a legal means to get music online through services like Rhapsody, Ruckus, Cdigix and the now-legal version of Napster.

In many cases, services that can cost as much as $15 a month to the general public are being funded through existing technology budgets or student activities fees.

But American estimates that only about half of the 3,800 eligible students actually used the Ruckus service last spring, despite having an anonymous benefactor cover the subscription costs. (It's switching to Napster this fall and will start using student fees.)

"People downloaded it a lot in the beginning to create their playlists and then didn't do much after that," said Julie Weber, who runs the university's housing and dining programs. "Some people downloaded zero songs. They downloaded the (software), played around, looked at it, decided they didn't want to do anything with it."

Other universities found that although students use such services to listen to music on their computers, many continue to tap file-sharing networks or syphon digital music files from friends to load their portable music players.

Music retailers say they are banking not so much on students buying tracks now, but on becoming paying subscribers after they graduate.

"For us, it's not about purchasing behavior," said Matt Graves, a spokesman for RealNetworks Inc., which operates Rhapsody. "We are more interested in introducing students at that age ... getting them used to Rhapsody."