He was a self-confessed computer nerd. He was also an artist, although nobody believed it but him. Somewhere between Pokémon and Sailor Moon he got hooked on digital art.
There was a specific process. He would sketch a figure or two out on paper and then replicate it on the computer. Sometimes the quality was slightly less than desirable. He bought a digital sketch pad, one where he could use a special pen on the pad and it would show up on the computer screen. Still, he was really the only one who could truly appreciate it. Even his mother had her reservations.
Several years passed and he slowly got better. He would collect reference pictures. It was mostly harmless anime at first, but then he delved into manga and much more risqué art.
He joined several online groups that shared their art with each other. Some were better than others. Amazingly, his wasn’t bad, but these could not remotely be considered professional art groups. Still, they had fun, and it helped improve their craft.
Artificial intelligence became all the rage and he had to try it. He quickly created an account and was just amazed. No matter what words he put in, the site would generate an image to match. He would type in “Anime similar to Bleach” and an image would be generated. He saved them all, and many were shared with the group.
However, some of the images that were generated were less than desirable. Certain key phrases would generate images that, if real, would be considered illegal. He ignored those and learned what phrases to avoid. A couple people in the group would share theirs though. Most were animated images but others were much more life-like.
A few weeks after the first images appeared the site was suddenly shut down. He knew it had to be because of those images. He thought those guys were idiots, and was no big deal to him. He didn’t much care for that site anymore anyway.
That is until he was served with a search warrant. The authorities had tracked everyone that was part of that site and he was next on the list. They found the pictures he saved. Most were dirty, but since they were animated and weren’t too graphic, there wasn’t much they could do. The ones they found on his account were a different story.
He was arrested for “producing” those images. Even though the images weren’t real, even though they were computer generated, and even though he had never even remotely intended for those images to be created, they were still there, sitting ignored on an account he didn’t know much about.
He admitted that the images were generated from text he put in, but strongly denied that it was done intentionally. The district attorney didn’t care. He showed some of the pictures to the defense and they caved. What would have been 45 years became 25 with the plea deal. Without the funding to hire a lawyer and the public defender’s lack of diligence he simply ran out of options.
Several others from the group followed the same fate, suffering from software they had virtually no control over. While their stories are unknown, his is one of false accusations and innocence imprisoned.
