When USC programmers took the image of a Playboy centerfold in the early '70s and used it to test imaging algorithms, few guessed the controversy a single eye would eventually see.
The original photograph (left), capturing a young brunette named Lenna Sjööblom, ran in the November 1972 issue of Playboy. Now dubbed the "Lena image," it's become an unofficial standard in the graphics industry. Then in 1991, Optical Engineering ran an article full of Lena images. Playboy lawyers told the journal that the image belonged to Playboy, no matter how many geeks had appropriated it.
In the end, Playboy neither prosecuted nor gave Optical Engineering permission to use it. In this case the magazine found it easier to, er, just look the other way.
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