IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—S.D.N.Y.: Maxim publication loses round one to competitor in dispute over modeling competition, (May 19, 2026)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

The publication waited too long to seek a preliminary injunction and was not likely to prevail on trade secrets or copyright claims in any event, the court finds.

A publication, often described as a lifestyle magazine, that alleged that a competing magazine purloined the rules and mechanics of its modeling contest, was not entitled to a preliminary injunction because it waited until five months after the competitor’s contest launched—and one month after that competition was concluded—to bring its demand for relief, the federal court for Manhattan has held. The court, in denying the motion, also found that the claim was not likely to prevail on its trade secrets and copyright infringement claims because the allegedly copied contest rules and mechanics at issue had not been protected by a nondisclosure agreement and they constituted in any event unprotectible “scènes à faire” of the competition as opposed to protectible expressive arrangement (Maxim Inc. v. Playboy, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00530-JGK (S.D.N.Y. May 15, 2026)).

The lawsuit arises out of a dispute between two internationally known publications. On one side is Maxim, a self-described “multimedia lifestyle brand and publishing company” with a circulation of nine million readers. Maxim runs an annual contest that invites women to compete for an opportunity to appear on the cover of the magazine and to win cash prizes. The publication redesigned its contest in 2025, among other things adding a series of allegedly proprietary algorithms to score and rank modeling photos and extending the number of voting rounds in order to increase user engagement.

On the other side is Playboy, the nudie magazine founded by Hugh Hefner in 1953 (though the magazine’s subscriber base has fallen substantially since the 1970s and 1980s). The magazine has run modeling competitions since the late 1970s, with winners often featured in Playboy publications and other Playboy promotions. Like Maxim, Playboy also overhauled its competition in 2025 with new algorithms and voting mechanics—including many of the user-engagement features that Maxim had incorporated into its own redesign.

Maxim filed a lawsuit against Playboy in early 2026, alleging that Playboy had improperly accessed Maxim’s platform and copied Maxim’s “proprietary processes, technologies, and copyrighted works.” The lawsuit pleads nine causes of action, including trade secret misappropriation, copyright infringement, violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and multiple common law claims.

Maxim moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent Playboy from continuing to use the allegedly purloined contest mechanics, leading to this opinion.

Irreparable harm. The court denied the motion for preliminary injunction. Central to the court’s decision was its finding that Maxim did not show that it would suffer irreparable harm from Playboy’s continued use of the allegedly copied contest mechanics. The reason for this was simple: Maxim waited too long. Playboy’s revised contest began in August of 2025 and concluded in December. But Maxim did not move for a preliminary injunction until January 2026—nearly five months after the new contest had begun and more than one month after the competition had ended. That delay, the court emphasized, was “difficult to reconcile with Maxim’s assertion that immediate injunctive relief is necessary to prevent irreparable harm.” For this reason alone, the court found, the preliminary injunction would fail.

Trade secret misappropriation. And even if Maxim had shown irreparable harm, the court found, it still failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits. The court began with the trade secret misappropriation claim. In order to prevail on such a claim, the court noted, Maxim would have to show that it took “reasonable measures” to protect its secrecy of its contest mechanics. But the rules for that contest, the court noted, were publicly available on Maxim’s website without any access restrictions. To be sure, the court noted, the terms of service of the contest barred entrants from sharing more extensive details about the functionality of the contest. But those terms of service, the court emphasized, were “not equivalent to a nondisclosure agreement of the competition functionality.” Thus, the court concluded, to the extent the functionality of the contest was apparent to users who participated in the contest, Maxim’s failure to require a nondisclosure agreement or other similar confidentiality obligation “weigh[ed] strongly against finding that Maxim took reasonable measures to preserve secrecy of the competition mechanics, or ‘functionality,’ and therefore had a trade secret in the first place.”

Copyright infringement. The court also found that Maxim failed to show a likelihood of success on copyright infringement claim. For one thing, the court noted, Maxim did not show that it had standing to bring its claim because the copyright registration certificates on which it relied had been issued to the outside company that Maxim hired to manage the contest—not to Maxim itself. To be sure, the court noted, that outside company assigned its copyrights to Maxim itself once the dispute arose. But under traditional principles of copyright law, the court noted, the mere assignment of a copyright does not necessarily assign accrued causes of action unless those causes of action are expressly included in the assignment. But Maxim had not made that showing, the court found. Accordingly, at least on the record as it stood, Maxim had not shown that it was likely to establish standing.

And even if Maxim had established standing to bring its copyright claims, the court found, it had not shown that it was likely to prevail on the claim. Maxim alleged, the court noted, that Playboy infringed Maxim’s “unique contest mechanics, including Maxim’s competition structure, Maxim’s voting format, Maxim’s scoring format, Maxim’s prizes, Maxim’s prohibition against immoral conduct, and Maxim’s approach for notifying and validating winners.” But those alleged similarities, the court noted, concerned the structure, mechanics, content, and “scènes à faire” of the competition, “not the particular expressive arrangement or presentation of Maxim’s copyrighted materials.” Because copyright law does not protect “the underlying ideas, systems, procedures, or contest mechanics embodied in Maxim’s materials,” the court noted, “Maxim has not shown a likelihood of success on its copyright infringement claim.”

DMCA claim. The court also found that Maxim failed to show a likelihood of prevailing on its DMCA claim. Maxim alleged that Playboy intentionally removed Maxim’s copyright management information, or CMI, as part of its alleged scheme to duplicate Maxim’s work. But “a party that places its own CMI on a separate work is not liable” under the DMCA, the court emphasized, “merely because that work allegedly incorporates or derives from the copyright holder’s work.” That was the precise scenario alleged in this case, the court noted. “Maxim does not contend that Playboy removed or altered CMI from Maxim’s own copyrighted works,” the court noted. “Rather, Maxim alleges that Playboy created a derivative or infringing work and failed to include Maxim’s CMI on that separate work. That allegation is insufficient to sustain a claim under the DMCA.”

Common law claims. The court also easily dispatched Maxim’s common law claims. As to Maxim’s contract breach claim, the court noted, that claim was based on the allegation that Playboy violated the terms of service of Maxim’s contest website by using a dummy account to access the site and then copy its contents.” But even if that were true, the court noted, that claim would be preempted by the Copyright Act because it was “based on the same theory as its copyright infringement claim.” In any event, the court noted, “Maxim does not identify the alleged dummy account, offer evidence tying any such account to Playboy, or point to any irregularity in the Maxim Competition’s registration records suggesting that Playboy registered or participated through a dummy account.” Tortious interference, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition claims also failed for similar reasons.

The Case is No. 1:26-cv-00530-JGK.

Judge: Koeltl, J.

Attorneys: Geoffrey H. Coll (Clark Smith Villazor LLP) for Maxim Inc. Chris Frost (Frost LLP) for Playboy Inc.

Companies: Maxim Inc.; Playboy Inc.

Cases: Copyright TradeSecrets NewYorkNews