Scottish nurse convicted of file-sharing

The criminal conviction of a Scottish grandmother and nurse for file-sharing is a 'waste of public resources, arbitrary and disproportionate', the Open Rights Group has said.

Anne Muir was convicted on Tuesday for contravening section 107(1)(e) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 by distributing £54,000 worth of music files — mostly karaoke files — online, a charge she admitted. The record industry bodies BPI and IFPI investigated her before bringing about the criminal case.

"It is not clear the music industry has lost any money as a consequence," Open Rights Group (ORG) campaigner Peter Bradwell said in a statement on Wednesday. "She is now facing a fine of thousands of pounds and is being labelled a criminal. What she has done is no worse than a teenager hoarding cassettes."

According to the BBC, Muir's is the first criminal conviction in Scotland for file-sharing. The BBC report also quotes Muir's lawyer as saying she was suffering from depression and severe obsessive personality disorder, which is why she hoarded the files.