Limit access to some files (i.e. certain amount of users can download at a time)

I'm in need of a script that would limit the access to a high-bandwidth file. I am on a shared server, and this file will generate enough traffic to crash it, and I don't want this.

So I need a script to allow a certain amount of users to access this file at a time. I would also need to know how to use this script, since my knowledge of php, is...shall I say, non-existent...

P.S. These forums are pretty sexy! Glad I joined.

can anyone help?

Set up a members area and require people to sign up for an account in order to have access to the downloadable files. When they download a file you add the user name, the size of the file and the time into a database. If the total download size for a user within a given timeframe exceeds a set value then you disallow any furthe downloads until enough time has passed that the condition is no longer met. The only way that they have around that is to set up multiple accounts so you would want to tell people that you don't allow that and collect information during account setup to try to block them from doing so.

is there any script that can do this for me? I don't really know anything about php