The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed copyright infringement lawsuits against 405 students accused of sharing digital content across a high-speed university computer network known as Internet2.

The RIAA said that it was acting on behalf of the world's major record companies in bringing the action against the students at 18 colleges across the US.

Internet2 is an advanced network created by participating colleges and universities for important academic research.

Downloading via Internet2 is extremely fast. By using a file-sharing application known as i2hub, a movie can be downloaded in less than five minutes and a music track in less than 20 seconds.

The infrastructure is increasingly becoming the network of choice for students seeking to steal copyrighted songs and other works, according to the RIAA.

"This next generation of the internet is an extraordinarily exciting tool for researchers, technologists and many others with valuable legitimate uses," said RIAA president Cary Sherman.

"We cannot let rampant illegal downloading on Internet2 jeopardize this collaborative work. By taking this initial action, we are putting students and administrators everywhere on notice that there are consequences for unlawful uses of this network."

In addition to the 18 targeted colleges, the RIAA claimed to have evidence of i2hub infringement at another 140 schools in 41 American states.

While these schools were not included in the initial round of lawsuits, the trade body said that letters are being sent to each university president alerting them to the illegal activity occurring on their campuses.