In a landmark case for Danish courts and internationally, a man was sentenced to seven months’ suspended imprisonment and 120 hours of community service for posting nude scenes from copyrighted films.

He’s convicted of “gross violations of copyright, including violating the right of publicity of more than 100 aggrieved female actors relating to their artistic integrity,” Danish police reported Monday.

The man, a 40-year-old from Denmark who was a prolific Redditor under the username “KlammereFyr” (which translates to “NastierGuy”) was arrested and charged with copyright infringement in September 2024 by Denmark’s National Unit for Serious Crime (NSK).

In a press release, NSK wrote that KlammereFyr was a moderator for the subreddit r/SeDetForPlottet, which is a Danish version of the massive subreddit r/WatchItForThePlot, where people post clips of nude scenes—almost always featuring female actors—out of context. NSK said that KlammereFyr shared “no less than 347 nude scenes, which were played no less than 4.2 million times in total” in the subreddit. He’s also convicted of having shared and downloaded “over 25 terabytes of data with copyrighted works via the file sharing service superbits.org without the consent of the copyright holders,” and was also posting stolen images to the porn platform RedGifs.

The subreddit was set to private after media coverage about actors’ rights groups denouncing the practice, Torrent Freak reported last year. The subreddit is still invite-only, and a message says, “Denne subreddit er lukket ned, og vil ikke blive genåbnet” (“This subreddit has been shut down and will not be reopened.”)

According to Danish news outlet DR, the Danish Actors’ Association and the Rights Alliance reported KlammereFyr to the police in 2023, “on behalf of the Danish Actors’ Association, Danish Film Directors and the affected film producers DR and TV 2.” At the time, Danish actor Andrea Vagn Jensen, who had nude clips of her in movie scenes shared online, told DR: “It’s just abuse. You deliver something for the production and the story, and then you end up being molested that way.”

“Illegal sharing of films and series is never harmless, but in this case, we have seen the far-reaching consequences of scenes being taken out of context and placed in a pornographic context,” Maria Fredenslund, CEO of Rights Alliance, wrote in a blog post after KlammereFyr pleaded guilty last week. “This is both violent and very serious for the actors and producers who have been affected. I am therefore pleased that copyright law also protects works in practice, not least the actors’ right of respect, and provides the opportunity for redress after such serious violations of their professional integrity and person. With artificial intelligence and the ease of creating deepfakes, it is becoming easier to produce and share offensive content. This is another reason why it is important for the authorities to help emphasize the seriousness of this type of violation.”

A recently proposed bill in Denmark would amend the country’s copyright laws to protect the rights of ordinary people as well as public figures to their own likenesses, even if they’re used in AI or deepfake content.

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