The lawsuit stems from allegations made by Zeta-Jones against strip club The Spice House that her celebrity status was used to promote the company's website. The judge granted relocation of the lawsuit to Nevada at the request of the club owner who, according to local news media, claimed his business had no ties to California.
The "Chicago" film star filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in October 2004, a year after discovering that her image appeared on multiple web pages featuring models performing explicit sex acts.
The suit states that Zeta-Jones' image was sometimes displayed alongside partially nude women, creating the false impression that she "endorsed or approved of the sexually explicit content" and could "dilute the value of her celebrity endorsement."
Zeta-Jones is seeking unspecified damages.
According to The Spice Club's Marketing Director Kent Wallace, as soon as his company was contacted by the Zeta-Jones legal team, the images were immediately removed. However, most of the blame is being put on a web designer who supposedly got the images from the Internet and used them on the site.
The designer believed at the time that the images were in the public domain and did not require permission from the actress.
