Record companies have filed another volley of copyright infringement lawsuits against computer users on the high-speed Internet2 network, which links universities researching the next-generation Internet.
The latest round of litigation targeted 64 people at 17 universities, accusing them of using the i2hub online file-sharing application to make music files available over the super-fast network, the Recording Industry Association of America said Thursday.
Internet2 is used by several million university students, researchers and professionals around the world but is generally inaccessible to the public.
To date, record companies have filed 560 lawsuits against Internet2 users on 39 campuses.
Internet2 users named in the latest batch of complaints were at Boston University, Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, among others.
The RIAA said lawsuits were also filed against another 693 computer users accused of making copyrighted music files available on eDonkey, LimeWire and other online file-swapping networks.
Since September 2003, the recording industry has sued more than 14,800 computer users in the United States.
More than 3,400 of those cases have been settled, each for an average of between $4,000 to $5,000.
An RIAA spokesman said the trade group does not disclose how much the industry has spent on legal fees related to its lawsuit campaign.