Playboy steps into the digital world

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Playboy Enterprises Inc. plans to expand into the digital world by allowing readers to view photos and articles on DVD, according to a report Friday.

The leading adult entertainment company said it will produce all 636 issues of its Playboy magazine page-by-page on six discs: one for each decade, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Playboy (up $0.31 to $10.54, Charts) is working with Bond Digital Publishing, which created the digital version of the New Yorker's magazine's archives in the fall of 2005, the paper said.

Bondi will scan 115,880 pages of Playboy magazines and manually type all text on the page. Playboy will not seek additional rights from writers or artists featured because each magazine will be duplicated exactly as it exists, the Journal said.

The first two discs will be available in October and will retail for $100. The disc is meant to be played on a computer and will also come with a 200-page book, according to the Journal.

The images from the DVD will be printable but will not have capabilities of being passed from one computer to another, the paper said.

The magazine's 80-year old founder Hugh Hefner didn't seem concerned about Playboy's legacy in the face of strong competition from the Internet, according to the paper.

The magazine has featured nude photographs of an array of famous women including the late Anna Nicole Smith, Sharon Stone and Jane Fonda. Playboy's e-mail system has been jammed with requests for reprints of Smith's images since her death, the paper said.

Playboy is the No. 1 men's magazine with nearly three million subscribers, competing with Emap Plc's (down $0.00 to $15.25, Charts) FHM and Penthouse.

The company is expected to report fourth-quarter results next week. Playboy's third-quarter net income fell to $1.1 million from $3.2 million in the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue rose 2 percent to $82.3 million.

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