🔗 Share this article

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

Based on a police document reviewed by BBC News, the unnamed man posted 347 video excerpts of explicit scenes in a subreddit he moderated, which were then watched 4.2 million times.

Danish police confirm he has been handed a seven-month deferred jail term for violating copyright laws.

Legal analysts say the defendant was charged under a rarely-used provision in Denmark's copyright law, with the court ruling that by taking the footage out of their original context, the accused had damaged the artists' "moral rights".

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

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

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

According to the Denmark's copyright protection organization The Rights Alliance (TRA), his online community had more than 6,000 subscribers and participants were encouraged to ask for excerpts of specific performers.

In last year, campaigners filed the incident to the police on behalf of the impacted actors, directors and producers, which led to the forum being closed down.

Andrea Vagn Jensen, among the actresses whose explicit content were circulated in the group, explained to local broadcasters at the time she believed there was a distinction between appearing unclothed in a film and being shown on Reddit.

The actress stated the posts constituted "exploitation".

'A significant message'

The man was arrested in fall 2024 and admitted culpable to the charges recently.

In a statement following the ruling, TRA head the organization's leader remarked the decision sent an "important" signal "indicating infringements of creators' entitlements has repercussions".

The verdict is viewed as unique in the country for its application of the "ethical protections" section of the Danish Copyright Act, which specifies an artist's work cannot be utilized in a way which violates their standing.

Copyright law specialist a legal scholar told the media the case was "unusual" for its emphasis on the harm to the integrity of an artist, rather than to them financially.

The extent to which the case 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 artificial intelligence, where "the integrity of an individual's creative output might be tempered with much more easily".