How actually illegal is it to develop H games in Russia?

[C'thun]

Soooo, i've actually stumbled upon description of laws about porn in general there and it's quite gray and unspecific. I would say it's actually quite illegal based on it. But i see russian language as option in these games quite a lot and there are enough of russian devs. I've tried to find decent discussion around russian web but it's mostly bits and pieces scattered everywhere. I've seen russian folks here and i'm sure there were stories going around patreon. Can somebody shed some light on this topic for me? Because from my point of view it's quite riske (2 years on probation and 5k of $ fine) for 200-300 $ of monthly income which is average as far as i know.

 

[Hadley]

I really doubt its illegal. Russia has lots of stuff that isn't specified by the law.

 

[C'thun]

I really doubt its illegal. Russia has lots of stuff that isn't specified by the law.

As i understood, creation and distribution of porn in any form is illegal there. At least on paper. But you must be a bit of a whacko in my opinion to just HOPE you won't be punished by law because government has more important stuff on it's plate. One thing is 200$ but what if you are actually making 2-3k monthly. While not having any job. Surely someone gonna notice it.

 

[baneini]

It seems to be a case of politicians sometimes going after largest porn websites they can for self-promotional purposes, and since pornography isn't defined it'd be nonsensical to sue individuals over it.
I doubt anyone ever has been sued or had police go after them for distributing porn games on western sites. Not enough money going around, not worth the effort. You wouldn't get political gain nor be able to prove what they distributed was actually porn = you can't even send a threatening letter to demand creators to pay fines.

 

[Rastafoo]

Ask Akabur

 

[megaplayboy10k]

How stuff works in Russia(turn on captions):

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[Avaron1974]

All the illegals

 

[RedPillBlues]

Nothings illegal when you BAC is always over .20%

 

[anne O'nymous]

According to

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:

"According to Russian law, consumption of pornography is allowed though the production of it is not. he illegal production, distribution, and "public demonstration" of pornography is punishable by a 2- to 6-year prison term. Roskomnadzor, the Russian government's media overseer, has the power to order the blocking of pornographic websites. In 2015 the agency required the blocking of the Russian-language version of Pornhub and 10 other pornographic sites on the basis of a court ruling.

There is nevertheless some uncertainty concerning the legal status of pornography in Russia. The law criminalizes only the 'illegal' production and selling of pornography (which implies that it sometimes can be legal), but two circumstances make enforcement of the law difficult: (1) the lack of a legal definition of pornography, and (2) no law defining when production or selling is permitted."

 

[Bullero]

No one knows the exact answer to that question.

I assume that its not the porn that may be a problem, but hiding incomes if you choose to.
But the tax service is aware of the huge shadow sector. And they consciously let small businesses be that way just because the incomes will fall otherwise, and the economy will be damaged.

Wikipedia is right. The summary is - authorities may use the laws against developers, but they wont do so unless seriously interested, unless there is a strong reason or unless you become a problem.

P.S. It works this way with some other laws as well, no matter if they are specified or not, so dont mind it too much.

 

[eosar]

The laws are intentionally left vague so that they can screw you over whenever they need to.

 

[vancenick321]

i want to make a soviet russia joke but i cant think of a good one....

 

[greenlittleman]

Soooo, i've actually stumbled upon description of laws about porn in general there and it's quite gray and unspecific. I would say it's actually quite illegal based on it. But i see russian language as option in these games quite a lot and there are enough of russian devs. I've tried to find decent discussion around russian web but it's mostly bits and pieces scattered everywhere. I've seen russian folks here and i'm sure there were stories going around patreon. Can somebody shed some light on this topic for me? Because from my point of view it's quite riske (2 years on probation and 5k of $ fine) for 200-300 $ of monthly income which is average as far as i know.

It is illegal. Even just seeding porn you download from torrent can be considered illegal as well. But I never heard about someone who was caught for developing a porn game. I would say that at least 10-20% of the male population here in Russia download porn from torrents, no one cares about it, including government. Some people (about 50-100 through the whole history?) who were accused because of sharing/seeding porn in torrents were accused of other crimes and their PC was confiscated, so the police just added additional accusation for the sake of being mean. One of the most popular Russian visual novels - Everlasting Summer has porn content in it, but no one was accused because of it. So, I assume, it is rather safe. Moreover so if you use VPNs, fake paypal, etc. Don't forget that there are a lot of "carders" (those who do carding fraud) who steal money from people and even they are rarely get caught and, mostly, when they steal from Russians, not foreigners. Also, don't forget that some game developers earn as much as 50 000$ per month just from patreon.

 

[83wulf]

The laws are intentionally left vague so that they can screw you over whenever they need to.

This.
And the law doesn't even have to be vague. The useful term is "selective enforcement". It makes a mockery of the Rule of Law for political and "practical" expediency. I dare say most countries do this and are corrupt and hypocritical about it. Not just Russia.