A 58-years-old woman, Anne Muir, has been sentenced to three years probation after becoming the first person in Scotland to be convicted of illegal filesharing.
Muir is a nurse from Ayr. Music trade bodies, British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) caught her downloading music tracks.
Muir admitted downloading and sharing more than 30,000 music files. The estimated cost of the files is £54,000.
Muir’s lawyers claim that she suffers from clinical depression, which helped her escape a jail sentence. At Ayr Sheriff Court, Sheriff Jack McGowan sentenced Muir to three years probation.
He said that he considered that Muir "suffered clinical depression over a number of years" and that she was a first offender. The sheriff also added that Muir did not profit from the downloads.
Earlier prosecutor Erin Campbell told the court, "In order to take part in this, the accused must have become a member of a file-sharing hub, which means you are able to download from others and others can download from you.
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"This is the first conviction of this nature in Scotland. The accused had been distributing files without a licence, breaking the owners’ copyrights."
"The accused had 24,243 karaoke files on her computer and 7493 music files with an estimated worth of £54,792."
