The Recording Industry Association of America said Tuesday it would file suit against students at 18 universities accused of trading files on the supercharged Internet2 network.
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 The suits, to be filed Wednesday, are the first to focus on the next-generation research network operated by universities. The i2Hub file-swapping service has operated for a year on campuses that are connected to Internet2.
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Recording industry executives said i2Hub had become a serious problem over time as students believed they could not be observed trading files.
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"i2Hub has been seen as a safe haven, and what we wanted to do was puncture that misconception," said Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA. "This has been a subversion of the research purposes for which Internet2 was developed."
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The suits mark a substantial expansion of the record labels' approach to universities, which have been a core location of the file-swapping population since the emergence of Napster in early 1999.
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The RIAA has already sued the operators of university-based file-swapping networks on three campuses, and has consistently highlighted lawsuits at colleges as part of its larger campaign against music traders