Editor Norm Zada Frequency Quarterly Country USA | Categories Men's magazine Year founded 1997 Language English | |
Perfect 10 is an online adult website – and formerly a monthly and then quarterly men's magazine – that features high resolution topless or nude photographs of 'all natural' women who have not had cosmetic surgery. Perfect 10 also promoted and filmed boxing matches between a number of their models, aired most recently as Perfect 10: Model Boxing on the Showtime and HDNet cable channels. The last print edition of the magazine was published in the summer of 2007 (issue 43). Since then it has switched to a subscription-based website only presentation.
Contents
- History
- Lawsuits
- Perfect 10 v Google Inc
- Perfect 10 Inc v CCBill LLC
- Perfect 10 Inc v Megaupload Limited
- Perfect 10 Inc v Giganews Inc
- References
Perfect 10 has often been the first to feature up and coming fashion models and glamour models nude, a number of whom went on to become Playboy Playmates or Penthouse Pets, most notably Jodi Paterson (2000 Playboy Playmate of the Year) and Erica Lookadoo (aka Juliet Cariaga, 2000 Penthouse Pet of the Year). Lexie Karlsen posed in Perfect 10, then became both a Playboy Playmate and Penthouse Pet. Miss Universe contestants Evelina Papantoniou (Miss Greece 2001) and Leilani Dowding (Miss Great Britain 1998) also posed for the magazine. Other notable Perfect 10 models included Erica Campbell, Katie Richmond, Veronika Zemanová, Marisa Miller, Tereza Benesova, and Ashley Degenford. Many Page 3 girls have also appeared in the magazine's pages, including Michelle Marsh and Sophie Howard.
History
Perfect 10 was founded by former computer science professor, championship poker player, and hedge fund manager Norm Zadeh (now Zada) in 1997 when a friend was rejected from Playboy because her proportions didn't fit the magazine's ideal. Before starting Perfect 10, he obtained a doctorate in operations research at the University of California, Berkeley and worked at IBM. To get noticed in an already saturated adult magazine market, Zada gave prominent display to his "$435,000 Perfect 10 Model Search" in which the model from the first year deemed most beautiful by a panel of celebrity judges would receive a $200,000 prize. $100,000 went to second place, and $50,000 to the third place models. The remaining $85,000 was split between the remaining seventeen finalists.
Ashley Degenford eventually won, and went on to land a role on the FX channel's The X Show. Monica Hansen came in second place and went on to do advertising work for The Gap Japan and to appear on the pages of Max, Maxim, and FHM. Marisa Miller, the third runner-up, went on to become a Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated swimsuit super model.
In 2007, Perfect 10 ceased publication of its print edition and switched to an exclusively subscription-based website. Issue 43, Summer 2007 is the last hardcopy magazine it published.
Lawsuits
It has been claimed that owner Zada spends minimal time (40 to 50 hours a year) creating content for the site, but '8 hours a day, 365 days a year' on litigation, leading some to call Perfect10 little more than a copyright troll - by 2015, the company had filed 20 to 30 lawsuits.
Perfect 10 v. Google, Inc.
In August 2005, Perfect 10 filed suit with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to stop Google from caching and displaying thumbnails to third party sites which offer unlicensed images from Perfect 10, arguing that this interfered with their cell-phone thumbnail offer. In February 2006 the court granted the request in part and denied it in part, ruling that the thumbnails were infringing but links sites with images were not. In appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled almost entirely in favor of Google in Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc.. The court ruled that Google's use of images was transformative and thus did not infringe Perfect 10's copyright.
Perfect 10, Inc. v. CCBill LLC
In 2006, CCBill was sued in United States District Court in California by Perfect 10.com for "violat[ing] copyright, trademark, and state unfair competition, false advertising and right of publicity laws by providing services to websites that posted images stolen from Perfect 10's magazine and website".
Perfect 10, Inc. v. Megaupload Limited
In January 2011, Perfect 10 again filed suit with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, demanding $5m in damages from Megaupload Limited (and its CEO, Kim Schmitz) for copyright infringement.
Perfect 10, Inc. v. Giganews, Inc.
In April 2011, Perfect 10 sued Giganews, a prominent usenet provider, for both direct and indirect infringement. Giganews prevailed on all grounds, and in March 2015 Perfect 10 was ordered to pay Giganews $5,213,117.06 in attorney's fees and $424,235.47 in costs. In January 2017 the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the original judgement.