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A Danish citizen has been found guilty of uploading nude scenes from protected movies and TV series on the social media site Reddit.

According to a law enforcement report obtained by BBC News, the unnamed man posted 347 clips of nude content in a Reddit group he managed, which were then watched 4.2 million times.

The country's police state he has been given a seven-month deferred sentence for copyright infringement.

Legal analysts say the defendant was charged under a seldom-invoked provision in Denmark's copyright law, with the court finding that by removing the scenes out of their intended setting, the accused had damaged the artists' "moral rights".

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

From March 2022 to May 2023, the man known as "the pseudonym KlammereFyr" on Reddit posted sexually explicit scenes featuring over 100 actresses.

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

According to the Danish copyright protection group The Rights Alliance (TRA), his subreddit had more than 6,000 subscribers and users were encouraged to request clips of particular performers.

In last year, campaigners reported the case to the police on behalf of the affected artists, directors and production companies, which resulted in the subreddit being shut down.

Andrea Vagn Jensen, among the actresses whose explicit content were circulated in the group, explained to local broadcasters at the period she felt there was a distinction between being seen naked in a movie and being shown on Reddit.

The actress stated the uploads constituted "exploitation".

'An important signal'

The defendant was arrested in September 2024 and admitted culpable to the allegations recently.

In a comment following the verdict, the head of the Rights Alliance Maria Fredenslund remarked the outcome sent an "significant" message "that infringements of artists' rights have consequences".

The verdict is viewed as unprecedented in Denmark for its application of the "moral rights" clause of the national copyright law, which states an artist's work cannot be used in a way which infringes upon their standing.

Copyright law specialist a legal scholar informed BBC News the case was "rare" for its emphasis on the harm to the dignity of an performer, rather than to them economically.

The extent to which the case could influence other countries is uncertain.

But she said there may be "an increasing number of such cases" in the future with the growth of AI, where "the integrity of an individual's work might be tempered with with greater ease".