Most porn movies for sale in Finland are technically illegal

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The Finnish Board of Film Classification has to be notified of every audio-visual programme to be distributed or exhibited in Finland.
      Films meant for adults do not need classification, but they do have to be equipped with the age-rating marking (K-18).
     
Today, on most pornographic films that are for sale in Finland no notification has been made. According to inspector Leena Karjalainen, as many as four out of five films could be illegal in this respect.
      ”I think that the number of notifications submitted to the Board constitutes just the tip of the iceberg”, says Karjalainen.
     
In 2008, the number of pornographic movies on which a notification had been submitted to the Board was 14,000, indicating a fall on 2007 figures of some 10,000. According to Karjalainen, distributors simply no longer bother to make such notifications.
      On the basis of the notifications, the Board may request a copy of the programme if it is suspected to contain material against the Penal Code.
      Helsingin Sanomat interviewed some distributors of blue movies, who said that today pornographic films which are being sold in Finland are more obscene than before.
     
Free online movies have caused trouble for traditional distributors, who have begun to resort to illegal material, including obscenity and violence.
      ”In recent years, competition has become harder, and the trend is likely to continue. Customers buy from where they can get what they want”, Karjalainen notes.
      Karjalainen reports that around half of the 1,300 blue movies classified by the Finnish Board of Film Classification in 2008 contained pornography forbidden by the Penal Code, in other words audio-visual material depicting children or violence in a sexually obscene manner.
      Because only a small part of pornographic films end up in the Finnish Board of Film Classification, one could only guess at the legality of the remaining part, she adds.
     
Unclassified movies are sold in sex shops, flea markets, second-hand bookshops, and on the Internet.
      The US-based adult magazine Hustler reports that unclassified porn movies are sold for example on Huuto.net, the largest Internet auction site in Finland, which belongs to the same media conglomerate as Helsingin Sanomat.
     
According to Karjalainen, the Finnish Board of Film Classification has also been informed of films defined as forbidden in the Penal Code that are available on Huuto.net. These findings have been reported to the police.
      ”We have not been aware of such films. We will take action in the matter if we find out more details about the distributor of such movies”, says product manager Toni Ruuska from Huuto.net.
     
Ruuska hopes that the Finnish Board of Film Classification will be willing to assist them in tracing the distributors of such illegal films, whereafter Huuto.net could remove their listing.
      After the Finnish Board of Film Classification has been notified of an audio-visual programme and it has been officially registered, the programme may be exhibited or distributed to people who are at least 18 years old as long as the recording has the age-rating marking ordered by the Board.


Links:
  Finnish Board of Film Classification

Helsingin Sanomat