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A Danish citizen has been convicted of uploading sexually explicit segments from protected films and TV series on the social media platform Reddit.

Based on a police document reviewed by BBC News, the anonymous individual posted 347 clips of explicit content in a subreddit he managed, which were then viewed 4.2 million times.

The country's police state he has been given a 7-month deferred sentence 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 scenes out of their intended setting, the man had damaged the performers' "moral rights".

He has also been convicted of sharing more than 25 terabytes of protected data.

From March 2022 to May 2023, the user using the alias "the pseudonym KlammereFyr" on Reddit uploaded adult scenes including over 100 actresses.

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

According to the Denmark's copyright protection group the Rights Alliance, his online community had more than 6,000 members and participants were encouraged to ask for clips of particular performers.

In 2023, advocates filed the case to the police on behalf of the affected actors, directors and production companies, which led to the forum being closed down.

One actress, among the performers whose nude content were circulated in the community, told Danish media at the time she believed there was a difference between appearing unclothed in a film and appearing on Reddit.

The actress said the uploads constituted "exploitation".

'A significant signal'

The man was arrested in fall 2024 and pleaded culpable to the allegations last month.

In a comment following the verdict, the head of the Rights Alliance the organization's leader remarked the outcome sent an "important" signal "that violations of creators' rights has repercussions".

The verdict is viewed as unique in Denmark for its use of the "moral rights" section of the national copyright law, which specifies an creator's creation cannot be utilized in a way which violates their standing.

Intellectual property expert a legal scholar told BBC News the case was "unusual" for its emphasis on the damage to the dignity of an performer, rather than to them economically.

The extent to which the ruling could influence nations abroad is unclear.

But she added there may be "an increasing number of such cases" in the coming years with the advancement of AI, where "the integrity of an individual's creative output might be compromised much more easily".