Originally Posted by ZENRA

Yes, if you want to sell/distribute within Japan, mosaic is needed. Where it gets interesting is that there are several mosaic-certifying organizations (apparently run by retired police officers if the rumors are true) that check to ensure mosaic is properly applied and that the titles do not violate any theme restrictions (which are *way* more lax than the rules are in the west). If you want to sell your titles on big sites and stores, you usually need to pay the few hundred USD (converted) for the certification seal. Of course this isn't required if you just want to sell independently on your own site or just on smaller sites and independent stores.

Uncensored stuff, as was slightly outlined in the article above, is still shot in Japan and then upload/mailed to another country for editing and whatnot. I wonder if the company in question was using a VPN and/or encrypted hard drives.

Shooting uncensored by itself isn't illegal. All porn starts out that way. Mosaic isn't auto-added at the time of recording.