LOS ANGELES — Playboy Enterprises is still hot under the collar about other companies poaching its 60th anniversary issue supermodel Kate Moss photos, this time suing pop culture website BlackBook.com.
Playboy’s copyright infringement suit filed in Manhattan Federal Court on Wednesday is seeking $150,000 for each photo used from the January/February 2014 issue.
The suit against the blog operator McCarthy LLC, claims that the website used the nude photos of Moss in two articles in an effort “to attract Internet traffic.”
Playboy argued that the site used the photos for “commercial purposes” because it runs ads on the site.
The photos in question have since been taken down by BlackBook.
Earlier this year the entertainment giant slapped Harper’s Bazaar and the fashion magazine’s publishing house Hearst Communications with a similar suit, claiming that Harper’s editors posted a photograph of Moss dressed in its trademark Playboy bunny ears outfit online, and also linked to website Entertainement.ie that posted nine copyrighted nude images of the star.
Playboy also hit LeBook.com with a lawsuit in December of 2013 over the Moss photos, claiming LeBook violated its copyrights in an "ongoing, wanton and willful" fashion only days, if not hours, after Playboy's release of its special 60th Anniversary issue.
LeBook's operators however fired back at Playboy shortly after the accusations claiming the company lacked valid copyrights to the photos.
Representatives for McCarthy LLC were not available for comment.
