LOS ANGELES – A model whose photo was allegedly used on a Playboy videotape without her permission sued the men’s magazine, according to court papers obtained Tuesday.
Amber Goetz filed her lawsuit Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Playboy Enterprises International Inc., alleging misappropriation and unauthorized commercial use of image, invasion of privacy and false endorsement.
Playboy representatives were not immediately available for comment. Goetz is asking for compensatory damages of $750 per unauthorized use of her photo on the videotapes, plus punitive damages. The use of her photo on the videotape has humiliated Goetz and cost her standing in the modeling profession, the lawsuit stated.
According to the lawsuit, Goetz’s photo was used on the cover of a videotape named “Playboy Exposed: Spring Break” from October 2002 to October 2005.
Goetz, smiling and wearing a bikini, had posed for the photo in connection with a job that had nothing to do with Playboy, said her attorney Daniel Noveck.
“Then Playboy somehow got a hold of it and one of her friends saw the videotape and said, `Guess what,”‘ Noveck said.
The tape was Playboy’s attempt at doing something similar to the “Girls Gone Wild” videotapes, Noveck said.
The videotape has been advertised on an Internet site that “advertises lurid, graphic sexual toys and pornographic video-recordings,” according to the lawsuit.
Goetz has “never been involved or associated with products of this nature,” the lawsuit stated.