Hollywood lauds closure of piracy site

Hollywood's entertainment industry hailed a move by Swedish law enforcement to shut down The Pirate Bay, which was described as "one of the world's largest and most well known facilitators of online piracy," an AFP report said.

The Motion Picture Association of America said the action in Sweden was in response to a complaint it filed in November 2004.

"The actions today taken in Sweden serve as a reminder to pirates all over the world that there are no safe harbors for Internet copyright thieves," MPAA chairman and chief executive Dan Glickman was quoted as saying.

"Intellectual property theft is a problem for film industries all over the world and we are glad that the local government in Sweden has helped stop "˜The Pirate Bay' from continuing to enable rampant copyright theft on the Internet," he added.

In Stockholm, officials announced the arrest of three people suspected of illegal file-sharing in several raids involving more than 50 police officers.

The PirateBay provides instructions on how to share music and movie files with others on the Internet using links offered on the site. The three suspects, aged 22, 24 and 28 and who worked for the Web site, were released after several hours on Wednesday.