MOVIES - May 14, 1993

Video Pirates Halted: Italian police, responding to pressure from the Motion Picture Assn. of America, have closed down a Naples-based operation that produced thousands of pirate video cassettes in Italy. The MPAA received government assurances that Italy would crack down on offenders after the Walt Disney Co. complained when its animated film “Beauty and the Beast” was being sold on Rome sidewalks in pirate copies only days after it was released on cassette in the United States. Naples police said they seized 16,000 videocassettes and 400 videocassette recorders during the raid.