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A Danish citizen has been found guilty of uploading nude segments from copyrighted movies and television shows on the online site Reddit.

According to a police document reviewed by BBC News, the unnamed individual posted 347 clips of explicit content in a Reddit group he moderated, which were then viewed 4.2 million times.

The country's police state he has been handed a 7-month deferred jail term for violating copyright laws.

Legal analysts say the defendant was charged under a seldom-invoked clause in Danish copyright law, with the judge finding that by taking the footage out of their original context, the man had harmed the performers' "ethical entitlements".

He has additionally been convicted of distributing more than 25 terabytes of protected data.

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

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

Per the Denmark's copyright protection organization the Rights Alliance, his subreddit had more than 6,000 members and users were encouraged to ask for clips of specific performers.

In last year, campaigners filed the incident to the authorities on behalf of the impacted artists, directors and production companies, which resulted in the subreddit being shut down.

Andrea Vagn Jensen, among the actresses whose explicit scenes were shared in the community, explained to local media at the time she believed there was a difference between appearing naked in a movie and being shown on Reddit.

The actress said the uploads amounted to "abuse".

'A significant signal'

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

In a statement after the ruling, the head of the Rights Alliance the organization's leader remarked the outcome sent an "significant" signal "indicating infringements of artists' entitlements have repercussions".

The verdict is viewed as unprecedented in Denmark for its application of the "ethical protections" clause of the national copyright law, which states an artist's creation cannot be utilized in a manner which violates their standing.

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

How the ruling could affect nations abroad is uncertain.

But she added there may be "more and more of such cases" in the coming years with the advancement of artificial intelligence, where "the sanctity of an individual's creative output might be compromised with greater ease".