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A Denmark-based man has been found guilty of sharing nude segments from copyrighted movies and TV series on the social media platform Reddit.

Based on a police report reviewed by BBC News, the unnamed man posted 347 clips of explicit content in a subreddit he moderated, which were then viewed 4.2 million times.

Danish police state he has been given a seven-month suspended jail term for copyright infringement.

Experts say the defendant was prosecuted under a seldom-invoked provision in Denmark's intellectual property legislation, with the court ruling that by removing the scenes out of their intended setting, the accused had damaged the artists' "ethical entitlements".

He has additionally been convicted of distributing more than 25 terabytes of copyrighted digital content.

From March 2022 to mid-2023, the man known as "KlammereFyr" on Reddit posted sexually explicit clips 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 participants were encouraged to request excerpts of particular actors.

In 2023, advocates filed the incident to the police on behalf of the affected artists, filmmakers and production companies, which resulted in the subreddit being shut down.

Andrea Vagn Jensen, one of the actresses whose explicit content were circulated in the community, explained to Danish broadcasters at the period she felt there was a distinction between appearing naked in a movie and being shown on Reddit.

The performer stated the uploads constituted "exploitation".

'A significant signal'

The man was detained in September 2024 and admitted culpable to the allegations last month.

In a statement after the ruling, TRA head the organization's leader said the outcome sent an "important" message "that infringements of creators' entitlements has consequences".

The ruling is considered unique in the country for its application of the "ethical protections" section of the national copyright law, which states an artist's creation cannot be used in a way which violates their standing.

Intellectual property specialist a legal scholar informed the media the legal matter was "unusual" for its focus on the harm to the dignity of an performer, rather than to them economically.

How the ruling could affect nations abroad is unclear.

But she added there may be "an increasing number of such cases" in the coming years with the growth of AI, where "the integrity of an individual's creative output might be tempered with with greater ease".