Playboy Vintage Digital Reissues?

[Bum Aficionado]

Originally Posted by Gordon3

tl;dr: Nowhere, but for complex reasons:

Playboy's current digital offerings, now & for the foreseeable future, is strictly limited to the previously printed magazine. I may be wrong in this respect, however, I believe that there was a sale of pictorial material shot, but not included, in the magazine. This transfer occurred around 2012 or 2013 when Playboy contracted with Mindgeek to exclusively produce nude pictorials for the magazine. As part of that deal, Mindgeek purchased the historical photo archive of Playboy, including the rights to any photography not published in the main magazine proper.

Mindgeek is currently operating Playboy Plus, a completely separate softcore site with virtually no Playboy magazine material. They just license the name Playboy from what's left of the Playboy magazine operation. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be interested in making that historic material available via a paid web site. Frankly, they appear to be only interested in giving their Los Angeles-based operation credibility by using that name, and producing new softcore material, as a funnel for getting talent into the hardcore side of the industry, rather than making money selling photography to Playboy or selling modeling videos online. (Instagram girls make more money keeping their clothes on than Playmates have made in recent years, if they stay in softcore for what makes for a very short career.) However, Mindgeek has licensed back some photography to Playboy magazine for retrospectives, with previously unpublished shots, while they were still publishing.

Thank you for a well-laid out explanation. I know this was from a few years ago, but could someone explain the various "owners" of PB and the archive today?

From what I know of:

1. The models and photographers did not have any rights to the photos -- those all went to PB during Hef's lifetime.

2. I've read that Ron Howard bought "the archives". However, from what news articles I've read, these seem to be the archives of any writing and art, i.e. the interviews, the stories from folks like Shel Silverstein, and the various comics or other illustrations.

3. There is playboyplus. Mindgeek? Or whatever the new company is called. I'm assuming this is new "bunnies" along with any of the old non-magazine media, like the videos or PlayboyTV broadcasts, no?

4. iPlayboy.com. This has digital scans of the magazine (only - no NSS, no calendars, etc). Who owns this? Also Mindgeek?

5. I've also heard that many of the archives* were destroyed or lost. * Archives as in, the negatives or slides from the photoshoots themselves. I don't know how much credence to put into this.

[Gordon3]

Originally Posted by Bum Aficionado

Thank you for a well-laid out explanation. I know this was from a few years ago, but could someone explain the various "owners" of PB and the archive today?

From what I know of:

1. The models and photographers did not have any rights to the photos -- those all went to PB during Hef's lifetime.

2. I've read that Ron Howard bought "the archives". However, from what news articles I've read, these seem to be the archives of any writing and art, i.e. the interviews, the stories from folks like Shel Silverstein, and the various comics or other illustrations.

3. There is playboyplus. Mindgeek? Or whatever the new company is called. I'm assuming this is new "bunnies" along with any of the old non-magazine media, like the videos or PlayboyTV broadcasts, no?

4. iPlayboy.com. This has digital scans of the magazine (only - no NSS, no calendars, etc). Who owns this? Also Mindgeek?

5. I've also heard that many of the archives* were destroyed or lost. * Archives as in, the negatives or slides from the photoshoots themselves. I don't know how much credence to put into this.

1. Former PB photographer David Mecey has implied in his current online magazine, Mece, that he has kept a large outtake archive from his time working for the bunny (even a couple thumbnails have appeared in the magazine). Of course, he does not hold legal rights or ownership to any of that material, but should any PB rights slip into the public domain, those photos may surface. However, the issue of former models contesting releases against Mindgeek in recent years makes this an even more remote possibility. Also, it's unknown what other PB photographers may have.

The recent purchase of Mindgeek, et.al. by a Canadian private equity firm, Aylo Holdings, provides additional complications. As I stated in a recent unread post (http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/sho...79&postcount=1), Aylo Holdings is an escape pod for the old Mindgeek operators to step away from their criminal & civil legal troubles in the US. But this third party, now being a target of potential federal prosecution in the US, is also the new defendant in the thousands of lawsuits against what was Mindgeek. As I posted in my Secrets of Playboy recaps (http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/sho...&postcount=139), former models aren't happy about Hefner's sale to Mindgeek, and have been actively suing. While Aylo may release or sell their rights to this material, either back to PB Holdings, or to another party, these lawsuits are going to hold up this prospect, possibly in perpetuity. In fact, a lot of the old photography that PB+ once had on their site has reportedly been removed.

2 & 4. Playboy Holdings as a licensing company still exists, and the last I heard, is still operating the site where they "stream" the historic magazine collection on iPlayboy. In order to operate that legally, the firm would need to own the rights to digitally distribute the articles, comics, etc. Not having seen these news reports, I don't know what Howard actually bought. He may own a large number of manuscripts or art (the physical paper itself) that was submitted to the magazine, but he cannot publicly distribute it. He may merely display these items in his home.

3. This is hearsay, but as far as I can tell, no one seems to claim ownership of the Playboy Channel or Playboy VHS video library prior to around 1995 to 2000, including the Video Playmate Calendars, the Video Magazine series, Wet & Wild, Sexy Lingerie, etc. It was around 2000 when Playboy stopped releasing new tapes to the VHS market. All of this material seems orphaned, as none of this has ever appeared on Mindgeek's Playboy Plus or Playboy TV service. (An exception seems to be the post-2000 Video Playmate Calendars, which had partially appeared on the Playboy TV web service.)

After Playboy at Night rebranded to Playboy TV in the mid-1990's, the company started making a lot of original adult industry-oriented content, like Sex Court, Night Calls, and new episodes of Sexcetera. This era of shows, and forward until today, is definitely owned by Mindgeek/Aylo. The company is still offering, the last time I checked, Playboy TV, a web-based subscription service where you can stream repeats of all of this material. In fact, as I previously reported in this thread, when I was a subscriber during the pandemic, there was an occasional new episode (about a half-hour to an hour per month) being released.

Rest of question 4. Material like the old print calendars and some of the newsstand specials, being outtakes of magazine content, is owned by Mindgeek/Aylo. Newsstand special material not considered magazine outtakes, that was specifically shot for the specials, was also included in the Mindgeek sale. Generally speaking, anything that ever appeared on the old previously aforementioned Cyber Club (RIP 2012) is now owned by Mindgeek/Aylo, with the possible exception of a few Playmate Calendar clips from the 80's & 90's that briefly appeared in the Cyber Club.

5. A lot of this seems to be in possession of the original photographers, as mentioned above. Also, as discussed on Secrets of Playboy, photos and candids from parties and from around the mansion, plus some miscellaneous outtakes possessed by Hefner upon his death, were burned by Crystal Hefner after Hugh's passing, as claimed by Crystal at least. Mindgeek also reportedly took possession of a large number of slides during the sale.

About a dozen more explicit slides have appeared here on VEF over the past year or so, but I have no idea who the source is, but I've assumed that it was from Mindgeek's cache or one of those "personal" collections.

[Gordon3]

Originally Posted by Gordon3

The recent purchase of Mindgeek, et.al. by a Canadian private equity firm, Aylo Holdings, provides additional complications. As I stated in a recent unread post (http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/sho...79&postcount=1), Aylo Holdings is an escape pod for the old Mindgeek operators to step away from their criminal & civil legal troubles in the US. But this third party, now being a target of potential federal prosecution in the US, is also the new defendant in the thousands of lawsuits against what was Mindgeek...

By the way, as found at Ars Technica (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...s-take-effect/), Aylo Holdings is the shell company for PornHub, etc., created by the private equity owners, Ethical Capital Partners (ECP), which is a little like changing the name Phillip Morris to Healthy Smoking, Inc.

[Bum Aficionado]

Originally Posted by Gordon3

Not having seen these news reports, I don't know what Howard actually bought. He may own a large number of manuscripts or art (the physical paper itself) that was submitted to the magazine, but he cannot publicly distribute it. He may merely display these items in his home.

If you’re curious, here’s a couple Ron Howard articles. Granted, the time frame was 20 years ago so maybe this has changed hands again.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/may/08/news

Giving strength to the claim that some people actually read Playboy for the articles, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's Imagine Entertainment has teamed with Universal Pictures to acquire the rights to 48 years of the magazine's archive material, with a view to making films based on the writing.

The deal includes material dating from Playboy's first issue in 1953. Grazer said, "Playboy magazine has served as the birthplace of source material for numerous movies, TV shows and plays. But we think there's still a lot of gold left to be mined from those archives".

Writers such as John Irving and Ray Bradbury have had work published in the magazine and the successful films Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The World According to Garp and The Hustler were all based on material originally published in Playboy.

These films, and the ones Imagine and Universal plan to make, are not to be confused with movies made by Playboy's own production company, Playboy Entertainment…

https://www.writerswrite.com/univers...ine-5132002588

[Gordon3]

Originally Posted by Bum Aficionado

If you’re curious, here’s a couple Ron Howard articles. Granted, the time frame was 20 years ago so maybe this has changed hands again...

Some interesting info here. It sounds like Howard has ownership of an option to turn some classic Playboy Magazine material into possible future films, TV shows, etc. Playboy published a lot of fiction over the years, and as far as I know, little to none of it has ever been adapted to the screen, so such an adaptation might be coming in the future.

Also, if Glazer, Howard, & Universal ever decide to make a biopic on Hefner, what they come up with will be interesting, given that Hefner's current reputation in the general public is actually worse now than when he was alive.

[Gordon3]

I just wanted to mention that I posted an update about PB+ claiming in an e-mail that they had already posted everything they bought from Playboy on PB+, and why that doesn't make sense and why I think Aylo still has unreleased classic photos, here: http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/sho...&postcount=639 .