Boston University (B.U.) filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Monday against eight on-line companies that sell term papers to students in Massachusetts.

The university claims that these companies are violating statues on mail and wire fraud by selling and distributing fraudulent term papers via these methods.

The companies' actions constitute a "pattern of racketeering activity" and are in violation of federal law, according to a B.U. press release. In addition, the companies are charged with breaking a Massachusetts law prohibiting the sale of term papers and other research materials, according to the release.

A principle from one of the leading purveyors of research papers-which was named in the suit-who spoke under the condition of anonymity, claimed that his company is not in violation of any law, and that B.U.'s attempt to censor its material in the state of Massachusetts is a breech of its First Amendment rights.

The suit, which marks the first legal action taken against such companies operating on the Internet, is being pursued in federal court because the companies are based outside of Massachusetts.

In the suit, B.U. asked the court to order the cessation of sales by the companies and extract punitive damages.

The suit was filed after a several month-long, on-line sting operation conducted by B.U. in the investigation, the university-using online search engines-tried to identify companies which sold papers to students over the Internet.

Because the practice of selling term papers and other research materials is illegal in Massachusetts, administrators and staff of B.U. said they were worried about the implications of companies on the Internet selling term papers to students living in Massachusetts, according to Kevin Carleton, director of public relations at B.U.

"The faculty and deans were aware that [the Internet] was an avenue by which people could obtain term papers, as opposed to the traditional ways [of

selling these papers] using mail or direct delivery, and the president asked the staff to look into it," Carleton said.

After identifying these on-line "term paper mills," the university's office of the General Counsel contacted some of these companies to further investigate their activities.

According to B.U., staff members posed as students requested a paper which they could submit as their own work for an English class.

Although the companies which are cited in the lawsuit print multiple disclaimers that their products are to be used for "informational" or "research" purposes only, the university alleges that these companies provided them with a completed product after being informed of the intended plagiarism by the supposed student.

In some cases, the paper came with a personalized cover page, including the name of the student, the professor of the class, the date and the specific title, Carleton said.

The unnamed representative argued that B.U.'s actions constituted entrapment.

Responding to the question of why the format of their product is similar to that of a standard term paper, the representative argued that the product was just underlying research, not a ready-to-go term paper, regardless of how it looked.