Three men and a woman have been arrested for allegedly selling via online auctions explicit posters featuring images of women created using generative artificial intelligence, with Tokyo police saying Tuesday it is the first time in Japan that such crime came to light.
Tomohiro Mizutani, a 44-year-old retail worker who lives in Aichi Prefecture, was among those arrested Monday on the charge of distributing and displaying obscene objects to unspecified buyers.
The charge is related specifically to transactions in October, but Mizutani is believed to have racked up 10 million yen in sales over approximately a year.
Of the four suspects, aged between their 20s and 50s, Mizutani and two others have admitted to the allegations, saying they used AI to "make money easily."
The other accused person has denied some of the allegations, according to the Metropolitan Police Department's safety section.
The four used generative AI software available free on the internet to create explicit images of women, instructing the technology to produce images of the figures in certain poses and situations.
They pitched the posters as "AI beauty," selling them for several thousand yen each.
Apparently to avoid being banned from selling the items, the suspects displayed posters with censored images in the online auctions. However, they shipped uncensored versions to customers.
The alleged crimes were detected when the police were conducting cyber patrols, they said.
Countries are stepping up efforts to regulate and crack down on AI-generated graphic images and videos known as "deepfake pornography." The issue gained worldwide attention last year when explicit deepfakes featuring superstar American singer Taylor Swift went viral.
In Japan, there are no laws clearly restricting pornographic deepfake images, according to the Children and Families Agency.
But a local assembly in Tottori Prefecture, western Japan, passed in March an ordinance banning the creation and provision of deepfake pornography as part of efforts to protect minors from sexual abuse.
© KYODO
30 Comments
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Newgirlintown
Posters..?
sakurasuki
They fraud customers, they show their items as censored but the customers got the uncensored versions!
TaiwanIsNotChina
There is the real problem: Japan can no longer claim to be pure because of its tiny censorship bars.
Abe234
Meanwhile on the front cover of pervert manga sold legally in book shops, for all kids to see at eye level.
ian
I thought they were arrested for selling deepfake images but re article
Aaron J
Censorship is so silly considering you can often LEGALLY pay for photo sessions (and much much more) with many popular adult actresses.
Garthgoyle
So... Arrested for selling uncensored CG pornographic images.
WA4TKG
No pictures, of course
Daninthepan
Assuming they are not fake of any particular person (not clear in the article), who is the victim here?
SomeWeeb
Prostitution, legal. Imaginary porn art without little bars, illegal. Whew, somebody think of the children!
Yrral
These were not real people, nobody got exploitive
OssanAmerica
Selling pornographic products in Japan is regulated under Article 175 of the Penal Code. And advertising censored items while delivering uncensored ones would clearly violate that. But as anime and manga are exempt from this, it will be interesting to see how the Courts will treat an AI produced item.
shogun36
No copyrights were broken?
No real people were being used?
No payoff for the cops?
No one actually buys posters in 2025?
What's the issue here?
Oh wait, there it is............
Nomir
Unspecified buyers? WTF does that even mean? Japan's slowly turning into the UK.
I remember the good ol' days when anyone could buy junior idol dvds directly from store shelves. Now, Japan's run by a bunch of phucking prudes. The modern world is garbage.
BeerDeliveryGuy
Prostitution is illegal in Japan.
There are just a lot of loopholes.
Cephus
That's a good start!!
grc
That there was a demand says something
Yrral
Anime and Manga is just as pornography
Mirai Hayashi
Why are these Orwellian "Cyber Police" going after these people of these laws don't even exist???
GuruMick
Hard to find a "victim " here...which is unusual given most criminal law requires one.
What is the "wrong " the law is seeking to prevent ?
AI generated imagery probably, actually definitely, better than real world sleaze in terms of abuse of women .
Jind
I do not see an issue unless it is illegal.
Fountain
Japan doesn’t have a sex offenders’ register, still allows sexualised images of children in magazines and regularly lets sex criminals off with suspended sentences.
Of course it doesn’t have a law concerning deepfake pornographic images.
Jonathan Prin
There is a general law in the article 175 of the criminal code of Japan, and an obscenity test because of some hupheld ruling,
A work is considered obscene if it "arouses and stimulates sexual desire, offends a common sense of modesty or shame, and violates proper concepts of sexual morality".
Now we have an additional local culprit to the fall in demography as this test has been becoming more and more implemented in my opinion, to the point it has become ridiculous nowadays, with last change in 2007 with a first manga obscenity trial showing guiltry the creators of hentai manga Misshitsu..
Becoming the journalist that JT lacks...
BigNaraDeer
I would be interested in knowing how Japan would have turned out without the US imposed constitution
Mark E
arrested for ai imagery of obscene content to private buyers. Oh my, I know Japan is heavy handed and overbearing but FTLOG, come on! It isn't real people, and it isn't non-consensual. These customers made a purchase and again, its AI !! FFS
DanteKH
One of the weirdest things I have read this year.
Imagine Yakuza roaming free, business and usual, while the police chasing erotic Ai poster sellers and making a big fuss about it!
You can only read this in Japan, I swear...
falseflagsteve
Bravo to the boys in blue. Let’s make sure these perverts do some serious time, no doubt the police will check their devices and uncover more sordid filth and bring further charges.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again ban all pornography and AI.
Fountain
I agree with you regarding AI, Steve.
GillislowTier
I get charging them for using real people’s faces. But the generated people is weird. Probably ran afoul of some the censors. I guess even self published works need to be censored if your selling them even to private individuals.
justsomeguy8008
This is so silly. Japan needs to get with the times. Also its one thing to create deep fakes of real people but it sounds like they even said that the images were generated with AI so what's the problem? There is worse hentai I've seen in manga form that depicts some truly heinous things but that's ok to sell and make money off. So basically they got in trouble because it didn't have the silly mosaic pixels over the bits? You can see anything online here in japan as long as it was produced over seas so really this rule is moot. These kind of things need to go the way of the dinosaurs.