We have all seen a clip from a movie circulating online as if it were a loose object, separated from the story to which it belongs. In Denmark, a case has shown that this decontextualization can have very real consequences when what is shared are nude scenes and, in addition, other protected content. A Reddit moderator has been convicted in a case involving both the dissemination of sequences of actresses in Danish films and series taken out of context and the massive exchange of audiovisual works.
The forum that triggered the case, “SeDetForPlottet”, was not a marginal space within Reddit: it brought together thousands of users and maintained constant activity around nude scenes taken from Danish productions. There, cut clips were shared and described with the name and surname of the actresses, which generated concern among several professionals in the sector. Their complaints reached a local radio program, which focused on how these images were circulated converted into sexualized content.
A case that ends in a criminal conviction. The public exposure of the subreddit led to the Rights Alliance denouncing the matter in 2023 on behalf of actors, directors, producers and two major Danish networks. The police then opened an investigation that identified the moderator, who was arrested in September 2024 after it was confirmed that he had shared hundreds of edited clips and additional material on a private platform. The accused admitted the facts and, in November 2025, received a seven-month suspended prison sentence, a figure that prevents him from going to prison if he meets the conditions imposed, in addition to 120 hours of community service.
When the problem is not just money. The Danish ruling is based on an unusual concept outside the legal field: the right to respect, which seeks to protect the integrity of a work and those who participate in it, and which in this case is applied for the first time in a criminal conviction in Denmark. The court understood that extracting the scenes, cutting them and presenting them with a sexualized approach altered their original meaning and harmed performers and creators. Prosecutor Jan Østergaard stressed that the case shows that these violations are taken seriously, while copyright expert Alina Trapova explained to the BBC that the matter is “unusual” for focusing on damage to artistic integrity rather than economic damage.
What is protected when a scene is shot. For associations of actors and directors, the ruling represents an explicit recognition that the decontextualized use of nude scenes directly affects those who appear in them. In the statement published by Rettighedsalliancen, the director of the Danish Association of Actors, Maria Ventegodt, welcomed that the ruling recognized the violation suffered by its members and reinforced confidence that the authorities will act in these cases. In that same text, the directors’ spokesperson, Søren Balle, highlighted that altering and redistributing these scenes harms both the performers and the integrity of the work.
On the Internet we live daily with fragments of films converted into memes, parodies or small clips that serve to comment on a scene. This clip culture has normalized the fact that works travel without context, something that usually goes unnoticed when the objective is to play with the original reference. But the Danish case had a decisive nuance. There, the dynamic was different: users organized the material by specific names, requested specific scenes and received them through links from a pornographic page.
A warning for the era of AI and deepfakes. The Danish case is known at a time when artificial intelligence tools make it possible to alter videos with increasing ease. In this context, the head of the Rights Alliance, Maria Fredenslund, pointed out that the ruling marks a necessary limit on how images of actors and creators are used and warned that this type of protection will be relevant in a scenario with more content generated and manipulated by AI.
As we say, the sentence is set in the form of a suspended prison, so the accused will not enter prison as long as he meets the conditions imposed. With that part already resolved, the case moves to civil proceedings, where the rights holders have requested between 15,000 and 30,000 Danish crowns for each clip broadcast (between 2,000 and 4,000 euros).
Images | Brett Jordan | Screenshot | appshunter
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