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A Denmark-based citizen has been convicted of uploading nude scenes from protected films and TV series on the social media site Reddit.

According to a law enforcement report obtained by media outlets, the anonymous man shared 347 clips of nude scenes in a subreddit he moderated, which were then watched 4.2 million-plus times.

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

Experts say the defendant was prosecuted under a rarely-used clause in Denmark's intellectual property legislation, with the court ruling that by removing the scenes out of their intended setting, the accused had damaged the performers' "moral rights".

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

From spring 2022 to May 2023, the man using the alias "the pseudonym KlammereFyr" on Reddit uploaded adult scenes featuring over 100 female performers.

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

Per the Danish copyright protection organization the Rights Alliance, his online community had more than 6,000 subscribers and participants were encouraged to request excerpts of particular actors.

In last year, advocates filed the incident to the authorities on behalf of the affected actors, directors and producers, which led to the forum being shut down.

One actress, one of the performers whose nude content were circulated in the community, told Danish media at the period she felt there was a distinction between being seen unclothed in a movie and being shown on Reddit.

The actress said the posts amounted to "abuse".

'An important message'

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

In a comment following the ruling, the head of the Rights Alliance the organization's leader remarked the decision sent an "important" signal "indicating infringements of creators' entitlements have repercussions".

The ruling is viewed as unprecedented in the country for its application of the "ethical protections" clause of the Danish Copyright Act, which specifies an creator's work cannot be utilized 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 damage to the integrity of an performer, rather than to them economically.

The extent to which the case could influence other countries is uncertain.

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