NEW YORK — Maxim Magazine is suing MaximModeling.com, an Arizona-based modeling agency site to the tune of $5 million for using its trademarked name.
According to the suit filed in Manhattan Federal Court, the site “misleadingly uses the Maxim trademark to solicit young women to pose for and/or appear in ‘softcore’ and ‘hardcore’ pornographic images and videos.”
The New York Post reported that the site — that’s now apparently been taken down — solicited “erotic assignments” and paid $500 to $1,200 per shoot.
“Maxim is an extremely strong brand,” Maxim lawyer Arthur Jacobs told The Post. “They use the name for their modeling agency and use it for a very condemnable purpose.”
Jacobs maintained that there’s no nudity in the magazine’s U.S. editions and that the modeling agency refused to stop using the Maxim brand.
But according to the site’s registrant, Eddie Coates, he never received a cease and desist letter from the mainstream laddie magazine and doubts that Maxim protects its trademark.
“There’s about 100 companies using that name,” Coates told The Post.
Coates did say that he’s sometimes asked if his operation belongs to Maxim, but tells people “no.”
Texas investor Sardar Biglari’s San Antonio-based Biglari Holdings bought the financially strapped magazine earlier this year from owner Alpha Media, for a reported sum of between $10 and $15 million.
MaximModeling.com's operators could not be reached for comment by XBIZ at post time.
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