A 41-year-old man has been sentenced to serve 10 years in prison for rape that involved no in-person contact, only online. Bjorn Samstrom, of Sweden, was found guilty of rape after forcing juveniles to perform sex acts on a webcam after threatening to post photos of the children on porn sites or killing their family, the AP reports.

The victims, 27 in total, were all under the age of 15. It was the first time in the country that someone was convicted for “online” rape.

"He has been convicted of crimes which he does not consider he is guilty of. So it is very possible that he appeals," defense lawyer Kronje Samuelsson told Swedish news agency TT.

According to the AP the Swede was also convicted of possessing child pornography, sexual coercion and other charges. Samstrom was hit with more than 100 charges, and was convicted on 59.

Online rape is a tricky legal question that many laws don't address because rape laws usually have some verbiage about penetration, James Chalmers, a professor of law at the University of Glasgow told Motherboard.

“Most rape laws actually require the accused to have themselves sexually penetrated the victim, so in almost any other country it would be impossible to prosecute what happened here as rape,” Chalmers said. “It will definitely set a precedent in Sweden, although it was already clear there that in principle there could be a rape conviction in a case like this.”

The idea of charges stemming from online harassment has come into prominence over the past few years. In 2014, Grand Theft Auto Online received widespread criticism after mods let people “rape” other players. In that situation mods made it possible for players to not wear pants, force characters to bend over and thrust, all while the “victim” could not stop the action.

Virtual Reality assault came into question last year when a woman said another player virtually grabbed and sexually assault her.

“... even when I turned away from him, he chased me around, making grabbing and pinching motions near my chest. Emboldened, he even shoved his hand toward my virtual crotch and began rubbing,” Jordan Belamire wrote in a Medium post last year. “What’s worse is that it felt real, violating. This sounds ludicrous to anyone who hasn’t stood on that virtual reality ledge and looked down, but if you have, you might start to understand. The public virtual chasing and groping happened a full week ago and I’m still thinking about it.”