Once touted as the most downloaded woman on the Internet, Cindy Margolis is making her nude debut in the December, 2006 issue of Playboy Magazine. At the not-so-tender age of 40, Cindy is undoubtedly beyond the physical prime that once accounted for her online popularity. Yet, as many aging actresses and imminently forgotten female celebs have done before her, she’s decided to pose nude in what must be the hopes of a last hoorah. Playboy has an incomparable track record of wooing female celebs onto its pages. Part of the allure for prospective celeb centerfolds must be that Playboy promises to make them look good, sometimes better than they ever looked before, even if it takes a little airbrushing and mood lighting to achieve the desired effect. As fans we are generally happy to have whatever glimpse of them we can get. For the female celeb, especially if there is already a large amount of extant photography (as in Cindy’s case), the Playboy images may become the definitive images of their career — displacing less flattering or controversial images from the public attention.

It is naive of Playboy, however, and a tragic shortsale of the potential benefit to the model, to try to preserve these images exclusively in the medium of print. It is impossible to prevent their digitization and rampant dissemination upon the Internet. It is also far beyond the capacity of even the most well-funded and determined of companies to police the unauthorized duplication and use of images upon the Web — especially when they have been so widely distributed in print. I have a great deal of respect for the Playboy organization and even enjoy the friendship of several Playboy employees. I must, however, encourage them to think more creatively and to try to conceive of an image publication strategy that understands the New Medium — one that exploits the behavior of content “pirates” and feeds the appetites of the consumer public, rather than squander resources trying to stem a torrent that will not be suppressed. To those with the intellectual wherewithal to meet the challenge I would suggest the questions: How can we use image piracy as an effective branding vector, even if watermarks are removed? If you were to draw a line through the whole of your image assets, with protected images on one side and “free” images on the other, what kinds of attributes should define each category? Since it is impossible to prevent the mass digitization of printed images, and since digital rights management measures (obviously) can only operate in the digital realm, what is the best way to maximize revenue both online and offline? To think they can answer this challenge with a digital version of the print magazine is absurd beyond description. Playboy has a long history of financial success based on offline revenue. The topline is impressive (fiscal 2005 revenues were $338 million), but there has been little or no growth, at a time when other online savvy companies are exploding. Why? Though the brand is undeniably global, the revenue potential of the Web for Playboy is almost entirely unexploited. I want to see them succeed. It would be cool to see a brand that has figured so importantly in the American culture take a place of leadership among the online powerhouses. But to do that, they are going to have to shed some old school thinking.

Fans of intellectual property legal theory may appreciate — Napster.

Cindy Margolis Filmography

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 2nd, 2006 at 9:49 am and is filed under media, SMUTETTES, celebrity smut. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.