🔗 Share this article

A Danish citizen has been found guilty of sharing sexually explicit scenes from copyrighted movies and television shows on the social media platform Reddit.

According to a police document obtained by BBC News, the unnamed individual posted 347 clips of nude scenes in a subreddit he managed, which were then watched 4.2 million times.

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

Experts say the defendant was charged under a rarely-used clause in Danish copyright law, with the judge ruling that by removing the footage out of their intended setting, the man had harmed the performers' "ethical entitlements".

He has also been found guilty of sharing more than 25 TB of protected data.

From spring 2022 to May 2023, the man known as "the pseudonym KlammereFyr" on Reddit posted adult clips including over 100 actresses.

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

Per the Denmark's copyright protection group the Rights Alliance, his online community had more than 6,000 subscribers and participants were encouraged to ask for excerpts of specific performers.

In 2023, advocates filed the incident to the police on behalf of the impacted actors, directors 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, told Danish media at the period she believed there was a difference between appearing unclothed in a movie and appearing on Reddit.

The performer stated the posts constituted "exploitation".

'An important signal'

The defendant was arrested in September 2024 and pleaded culpable to the allegations last month.

In a statement after the ruling, the head of the Rights Alliance Maria Fredenslund remarked the decision sent an "significant" message "that violations of creators' entitlements has consequences".

The verdict is considered unprecedented in the country for its application of the "ethical protections" clause of the Danish Copyright Act, which states an artist's work cannot be used in a manner which violates their reputation.

Intellectual property specialist a legal scholar told BBC News the legal matter was "rare" for its emphasis on the harm to the integrity of an performer, rather than to them economically.

How the case could influence nations abroad is uncertain.

But she said there may be "an increasing number of these actions" in the coming years with the growth of AI, where "the sanctity of one's work might be compromised much more easily".