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A Danish man has been found guilty of sharing sexually explicit segments from protected films and television shows on the social media site Reddit.

According to a police document obtained by media outlets, the unnamed man shared 347 clips of explicit scenes in a subreddit he managed, which were then watched 4.2 million-plus times.

Danish police state he has been given a seven-month deferred sentence for copyright infringement.

Legal analysts explain the man was charged under a seldom-invoked provision in Danish intellectual property legislation, with the court ruling that by taking the footage out of their original context, the accused had damaged the performers' "ethical entitlements".

He has also been found guilty of distributing more than 25 terabytes of copyrighted data.

From spring 2022 to May 2023, the man using the alias "the pseudonym KlammereFyr" on Reddit posted sexually explicit clips including over 100 female performers.

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

According to the Danish anti-piracy organization The Rights Alliance (TRA), his online community had more than 6,000 subscribers and participants were prompted to ask for clips of specific performers.

In 2023, advocates reported 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, among the performers whose nude scenes were shared in the group, told Danish media at the time she felt there was a difference between being seen unclothed in a film and being shown on Reddit.

The performer stated the posts constituted "exploitation".

'A significant message'

The man was detained in September 2024 and pleaded guilty to the allegations last month.

In a comment after the ruling, the head of the Rights Alliance the organization's leader remarked the decision sent an "important" message "indicating infringements of artists' entitlements have consequences".

The ruling is considered unprecedented in Denmark for its use of the "moral rights" section of the Danish Copyright Act, which specifies an artist's work cannot be used in a way which violates their standing.

Intellectual property expert a legal scholar informed BBC News the legal matter was "rare" for its focus on the harm to the integrity of an performer, rather than to them financially.

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

But she said there may be "more and more of such cases" in the future with the growth of artificial intelligence, where "the sanctity of an individual's work might be compromised much more easily".