ITHome ITHome reported on October 16 that, according to Bloomberg on the 15th, Denmark's Supreme Court upheld an 18-month prison sentence imposed on a 31-year-old man. The man was sentenced forpossessing and distributing tens of thousands of AI-generated child pornography images.
This closely watched case concerns how Denmark's current laws against child sexual abuse material apply to AI-synthesized content. The country's Supreme Court ruled thateven AI-generated pornographic images of minors without a real person as a prototype are likewise subject to Denmark's Criminal Code, and the sentence cannot be reduced merely because the figures in the images are fictional. Previously, the two lower courts had disagreed on the sentencing in this case.
The ruling stated that for possession and distribution of pornographic material depicting persons under 18 years of age, whether the figures in the images are considered fictional should not be taken into account in sentencing.
According to ITHome, the man's 18-month prison sentence does not allow for probation.
This is Denmark's first conviction for producing and distributing AI-generated child sexual abuse material, and the Supreme Court has thereby for the first time clarified the sentencing principles for such crimes under Danish law.
The man involved had used AI to create more than 36,000 realistic child pornography images and distributed them through websites and chat channels. Court documents show that he also sold some of the images through a subscription service, earning at least 25,000 Danish kroner (ITHome note: at the current exchange rate, approximately 24,801 RMB).
When police raided his home at the end of 2023, the man was 28 years old. He admitted to producing and distributing the images, but argued that since they werenot based on real people, he should not be punished under the relevant criminal provisions.
Last year, the case also triggered a cross-border police operation investigating hundreds of people who had purchased these images. Police identified 273 individuals based on payment records and arrested 25 people around the world.
Both of Denmark's lower courts held that even if images are entirely AI-synthesized, criminal liability can be pursued under current laws against child sexual abuse material as long as they are sufficiently realistic. But the two courts differed markedly on the specific sentencing.
In January 2025, the district courtsentenced him to 15 months in prison, but allowed most of the sentence to be suspended, citing among other reasons the lack of evidence that the AI model had been trained on real child sexual abuse material. Later that same year, the High Court changed the sentence to 18 months of actual imprisonment, reasoning thatthe number of images involved was enormous, the distribution was carried out in an organized manner, and some images had been used for profit。