HELSINKI, FINLAND — The Finnish Board of Film Classification has discovered most pornographic movies sold in the country violate the law — not because they’re obscene, but because importers and the board have been lax about enforcing a labeling regulation.Under Finnish law, explicit films must bear a K-18 label, indicating they are for adult viewing only. Every movie intended for public exhibition or sale in Finland must be reviewed and classified by the board, but adult titles often slip through if distributors label them before they are submitted for approval.

However, according to inspector Leena Karjalainen, as many as four out of five adult titles available in Finland today bear no markings at all and therefore should be removed from store shelves and websites.

“I think that the number of notifications submitted to the board constitutes just the tip of the iceberg,” Karjalainen told Helsingin Sanomat.

Official figures indicate the number of pornographic movies of which the board was notified in 2008 dropped by 10,000 from 2007’s tally. The decline represented nearly 50-percent. Although some of the downturn may be attributed to a consumer trend away from DVDs and toward online viewing, Karjalainen suspects most is due to distributors’ desire to avoid fees that cut into slumping profit margins.

“In recent years competition has become harder, and the trend is likely to continue,” Karjalainen said.

In addition, explicit content has become harder core in recent years, and Karjalainen suspects distributors are afraid some of what they offer may violate Finland’s obscenity laws. Nearly half of the 1,300 adult movies reviewed by the film-classification board in 2008 were rejected because they depicted children or sexual violence, Karjalainen noted.

The problem has stymied film board officials, who admit they have little control over DVDs sold online. For example, most of the porn available on Huuto.net — Finland’s largest online auction site, owned by the same parent company as Helsingin Sanomat — is unclassified.

“We will take action in the matter if we find out more details about the distributor of such movies,” Huuto.net product manager Toni Ruuska told the newspaper. She also said illegal products, when discovered, are reported to police.