A court cleared the editor of Playboy Indonesiatoday of distributing indecent pictures to the public and making money from them.
Editor-in-chief Erwin Arnada had argued the magazine was good for developing a pluralistic society, while the prosecution and Islamic hardliners who have regularly attended his high-profile trial said he had "harmed the nation's morals".
Efran Basuni, the presiding judge at the South Jakarta court, said the prosecution's arguments "could not be accepted" and "were not diligent" because they failed to take account of Indonesian media laws created after the 1998 downfall of President Suharto's regime that ushered in press freedom.
The magazine's first edition sparked protests in Indonesia last April, although it had no nudity and less flesh visible in the issue than many other magazines on sale in the world's most populous Muslim country.
Subsequent editions of the magazine are still on sale in Indonesian cities despite attacks on its Jakarta office after the April launch. There has been no government move to ban it.
The controversy itself has faded after Playboy Indonesiamoved operations to Bali, a Hindu enclave where conservative Islam has little clout. Indonesia has 220 million people, about 85 per cent of whom follow Islam.