While generative AI copyright disputes have for years primarily targeted large technology companies, an ordinary user is now facing criminal charges. A 27-year-old man in Japan has been recommended for prosecution for using Stable Diffusion to recreate a copyrighted image and sell it as a book cover. According to Chiba Prefecture police, the man entered approximately 20,000 prompts repeatedly to force the open-source model to generate a specific image. The Yomiuri Shimbun reports this appears to be the world's first case where a user — not an AI tool developer — faces criminal prosecution for copyright infringement related to an AI-generated work. Previously, legal actions had targeted only developers, and US courts ruled that AI-generated images cannot receive copyright protection. Many assumed individual users could not be prosecuted, and proving intentional copying within the complex internals of a model was thought to be too difficult. Legal analyst Kensaku Fukui notes that intent is key in this case, and that the large number of prompts used amounts to using Stable Diffusion as an advanced copying machine. The outcome of this Chiba case may set a precedent for whether everyday AI users can be held criminally liable. Ref: Gizmochina