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A Danish man has been found guilty of uploading sexually explicit scenes from copyrighted films and TV series on the social media platform Reddit.

Based on a police report obtained by media outlets, the unnamed man posted 347 video excerpts of nude scenes in a Reddit group he managed, which were then viewed 4.2 million times.

The country's police state he has been handed a 7-month suspended jail term for copyright infringement.

Legal analysts say the man was prosecuted under a rarely-used clause in Danish intellectual property legislation, with the court ruling that by removing the scenes out of their original context, the accused had harmed the artists' "ethical entitlements".

He has also been convicted of distributing more than 25 TB of copyrighted digital content.

From March 2022 to May 2023, the man using the alias "KlammereFyr" on Reddit posted sexually explicit scenes featuring over 100 female performers.

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

According to the Denmark's copyright protection group The Rights Alliance (TRA), his online community had more than 6,000 members and users were encouraged to request excerpts of particular actors.

In 2023, campaigners reported the incident to the police on behalf of the impacted actors, filmmakers and producers, which resulted in the subreddit being closed down.

Andrea Vagn Jensen, among the actresses whose nude content were circulated in the group, told local broadcasters at the time she felt there was a distinction between appearing unclothed in a movie and being shown on Reddit.

The performer stated the posts constituted "abuse".

'An important signal'

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

In a statement after the ruling, TRA head the organization's leader remarked the outcome sent an "important" signal "indicating infringements of artists' entitlements have consequences".

The ruling is considered unprecedented in the country for its application of the "moral rights" section of the Danish Copyright Act, which states an artist's creation cannot be utilized in a manner which violates their reputation.

Intellectual property expert a legal scholar told the media the legal matter was "rare" for its emphasis on the harm to the integrity of an performer, rather than to them financially.

How the ruling could influence nations abroad is unclear.

But she said there may be "more and more of these actions" in the future with the advancement of AI, where "the integrity of one's creative output might be compromised much more easily".