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A Denmark-based man has been found guilty of sharing sexually explicit segments from copyrighted films and television shows on the online platform Reddit.

According to a police report obtained by BBC News, the unnamed man shared 347 video excerpts of explicit scenes in a subreddit he moderated, which were then watched 4.2 million-plus times.

Danish authorities state he has been given a 7-month suspended jail term for violating copyright laws.

Experts explain the defendant was charged under a seldom-invoked clause in Denmark's intellectual property legislation, with the court ruling that by removing the scenes out of their original context, the accused had damaged the artists' "ethical entitlements".

He has also been convicted of distributing more than 25 terabytes of protected digital content.

From March 2022 to mid-2023, the man using the alias "the pseudonym KlammereFyr" on Reddit posted adult scenes featuring over 100 female performers.

He shared them in the subreddit he was a administrator of.

Per the Denmark's anti-piracy organization The Rights Alliance (TRA), his subreddit had more than 6,000 members and users were encouraged to ask for clips of particular performers.

In last year, advocates reported the case to the authorities on behalf of the affected artists, filmmakers and producers, which resulted in the subreddit being shut down.

Andrea Vagn Jensen, one of the performers whose nude scenes were shared in the group, explained to Danish broadcasters at the time she believed there was a distinction between appearing unclothed in a film and being shown on Reddit.

The performer stated the posts constituted "exploitation".

'A significant signal'

The man was arrested in September 2024 and pleaded culpable to the allegations recently.

In a comment following the ruling, the head of the Rights Alliance the organization's leader remarked the decision sent an "important" signal "that infringements of creators' entitlements has consequences".

The ruling is viewed as unique in the country for its use of the "moral rights" section of the Danish Copyright Act, which specifies an artist's work cannot be utilized in a way which infringes upon their reputation.

Intellectual property expert a legal scholar told BBC News the legal matter was "unusual" for its focus on the damage to the integrity of an performer, rather than to them financially.

The extent to which the ruling could influence other countries is unclear.

But she added there may be "more and more of such cases" in the future with the growth of AI, where "the sanctity of an individual's creative output might be tempered with much more easily".