Danish national man given deferred sentence for sharing explicit film clips on Reddit
A Danish man has been found guilty of uploading sexually explicit scenes from copyrighted movies and TV series on the online site Reddit.
According to a law enforcement report obtained by BBC News, the anonymous individual posted 347 clips of nude scenes in a subreddit he managed, which were then viewed 4.2 million times.
Danish police state he has been given a 7-month deferred jail term for copyright infringement.
Legal analysts say the man was charged under a rarely-used clause in Danish copyright law, with the judge ruling that by taking the scenes out of their intended setting, the man had damaged the performers' "ethical entitlements".
He has additionally been convicted of sharing more than 25 TB of protected data.
From March 2022 to May 2023, the man known as "KlammereFyr" on Reddit uploaded adult scenes featuring over 100 actresses.
He distributed them in the forum he was a administrator of.
Per the Denmark's anti-piracy organization The Rights Alliance (TRA), his subreddit had more than 6,000 subscribers and participants were prompted to request excerpts of specific actors.
In 2023, campaigners filed the incident to the police on behalf of the impacted actors, filmmakers and producers, which resulted in the subreddit being shut down.
One actress, one of the actresses whose explicit scenes were shared in the group, told local media at the time she believed there was a difference between being seen naked in a film and being shown on Reddit.
The performer said the posts amounted to "exploitation".
'A significant message'
The defendant was detained in September 2024 and admitted guilty to the allegations last month.
In a comment following the ruling, the head of the Rights Alliance the organization's leader remarked the decision sent an "important" message "that infringements of creators' entitlements have repercussions".
The verdict is considered unique in the country for its application of the "moral rights" section of the national copyright law, which states an creator's work cannot be utilized in a way which infringes upon their reputation.
Copyright law specialist a legal scholar told BBC News the case was "rare" for its emphasis on the damage to the dignity of an artist, rather than to them financially.
The extent to which the ruling could affect other countries is uncertain.
But she added there may be "more and more of such cases" in the coming years with the advancement of AI, where "the sanctity of an individual's work might be compromised with greater ease".