When Prince Harry was caught cavorting in the nude with a random blonde while playing “strip billiards”, most of the world brushed it off.

Harry is a young man, he was having a good time, as young men do. He was not admonished, and many thought that while he might deserve the naked publicity he received, he had done nothing wrong.

The truth is that someone close to the Prince (at least physically) took a photograph on their mobile phone and sent it to the press. It was a clear breach of privacy – it was in a private room and during a private event.

Nonetheless, someone decided to sell the photographs in what was clearly an invasion of the Prince’s privacy. Let us not forget – he is on active duty in Afghanistan and was enjoying some time away from the most inhospitable war front on the planet.

But the case of Will and Kate is worse. French magazine Closer ran photographs, taken by Paparazzi from a long distance while the royal couple were enjoying some private time together, as man and wife in a French private estate.

The grainy nature of the photographs is a giveaway, they were taken from a distance and someone knew exactly what they were looking for. The magazine Closer has courted controversy before. It published pictures of a dying Lady Diana after the car accident that killed her and her lover Dodi Al Fayed.

Since then, some of the photographs have made it to the web, but strangely they have not gone viral yet. Even Britain’s press – notorious for lack of scruples at times – has not published them. Most likely, this is because the vast majority of people realise that the sneaky photographs were not only in bad taste, but a complete violation of privacy of a married couple relaxing in a private venue – alone, or so they thought.

The royal family has sued the magazine, but an Irish tabloid has also published the photographs. In Italy, gossip magazine Chi, which is owned by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, said it planned to publish a 26-page spread with the photos today, although it wasn't clear if the content was any different from what Closer ran.

Chi is part of Berlusconi's publishing empire Mondadori, which also owns Closer.

That two magazines in Berlusconi's media empire were responsible for the distribution of the images of a topless Kate is remarkable, given the former premier's own problems with paparazzi and his privacy.

In 2009, he threatened legal action against the Spanish newspaper El Pais after it published photos of topless women and a naked man lounging at his Sardinian estate. Italian prosecutors seized the photos and placed the photographer under investigation for alleged violation of privacy.