NEWS RELEASE: Immediate release   January 24 2001

NZ NETGUIDE MAGAZINE WINS CASE AGAINST LOOK-ALIKE MAGAZINE

New Zealand's monthly NetGuide magazine this afternoon won its High Court
proceedings against IDG, the publishers of a new local look-alike Internet
magazine, with Justice Fisher concluding that NetGuide has a strong case
against IDG.

NetGuide, through its lawyers James & Wells argued that while it welcomed
competition, retailers and readers have been greatly confused. This was
because IDG's new magazine (called Net Magazine) was so similar in size
and appearance to the distinctive award-winning NetGuide which has been
published for over four years.

After three days of hearing, the High Court in Auckland this afternoon
confirmed an  earlier interim injunction prohibiting IDG from producing
its confusingly similar magazine.  The court ruled that IDG has to make
changes before it could put its new magazine back on the shelves and has
given that company various options. These  include changing the magazine's
title or printing a prominent disclaimer on the front cover as ways to
stop confusing consumers into thinking that magazine was in fact NetGuide.

The judge also awarded that IDG pay costs to NetGuide.

NetGuide's managing director Phil Ryan said it was a victory for a small
New Zealand company against a big aggressive American-based publisher who
thought it could "run us out of town because we have been so successful."
He said IDG had thought it could do this by simply confusing the
marketplace.

Mr Ryan said his company had reluctantly taken the court action after
literally hundreds of NetGuide readers had complained that they had bought
the rival magazine thinking it was NetGuide or had been sold the other
magazine by mistake.

"Of course we welcome competition and look forward to competing with their
altered magazine. Today's judgment confirms that IDG overstepped the mark
in copying our magazine so closely so as to confuse and mislead consumers.
Despite media commentary this case was never about the size of our
magazine but rather the rights of consumers to be able to easily
distinguish between products without being misled.


" IDG did everything possible to produce a clone - even copying our
distinctive shop display baskets in an effort to confuse everyone. We
agreed with our readers who remarked that imitation is the sincerest form
of flattery but we couldn't sit around and let the deliberate confusion
continue as it was hurting us."

Mr Ryan says today's action may not be the end of the issue. After the
court decision, IDG had indicated that the most likely course of action it
would take to comply with the order is to change its name to Internet
Magazine.

"I'm not 100% confident this will stop confusion in the market - in which
case we will  inevitably end up back in court to seek an further remedy.
Even if it does stop confusion with our magazine, it's possible it will
run into trouble with an existing overseas title available locally called
Internet Magazine, which is published by major UK publishing group Emap."

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