UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has cracked down on a music website RnBXclusive.com.
Soca has also threatened visitors to the site with a 10-year jail term and an unlimited fine.
It is said that the site caused losses of up to £15m a year to the record industry.
The agency issued a statement saying that as a result of illegal downloads, young, emerging artists may have had their careers damaged.
"If you have illegally downloaded music, you will have damaged the music industry," said the agency to the public.
The action is a part of a wider operation combating illegal uploading of copyrighted material online, with several sites being targeted using varied techniques, according to Soca.
Last month, Hong Kong-based file-sharing site Megaupload was shut down by US officials, following allegations of piracy.
Megaupload was a service that allowed people to upload and transfer large files such as movies and music with hundreds of servers around the world.
