Expert: Dan Pepper - 4/11/2009

Question
Hi Dan,

I'm trying to get off the ground in the UK and am currently raising money and buying equipment ready for my first promotional shoot. My question is that I would like to make hardcore porn. The type which you find all over sites such as xvideos etc and not the type you'd see on TV with a storyline and bad, but fun, acting.

Can you please advise me as to if there are any laws stopping me from releasing a DVD with this hardcore content in the UK? Am I right in thinking showing penetration will make it R18 and won't be able to sell copies from my site, through the post to the customer?

I have more questions as the deeper I look in to this the more sites I find suggesting hidden laws such as when recruiting talent, male or female, I could be arrested for soliciting sex! Please help as I'm really at a loss when it comes to laws and struggling to find advice to these common questions

Many thanks
- Jack K

Answer
Jack,

Unfortunately I am not an expert in adult entertainment law in the UK, but I do know that the law is currently in state of flux in the UK.  

Last year The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill received Royal Assent. Part of this Bill, Part 5, Clause 63 to be precise, is to criminalize “extreme” pornography. An “extreme image” is an image of any of the following - (a) an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life (b) an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals, (c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse, a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal, where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real.

You would be well advised to retain a local attorney qualified in this area to assist you.