Maxim Starts Legal Cat-Fight With Playboy Over Modeling Competition

A men’s magazine, Maxim, is suing competitor Playboy, alleging it used “confidential, proprietary, and trade secret information” to create a copycat modeling contest.Maxim has run the Maxim Cover Girl Competition since 2018 and launched an updated online competition last year. The competition invites aspiring female models, social media influencers, and actresses to compete for an appearance on the Maxim magazine cover, and win cash prizes.The magazine says its modeling contest is “acclaimed” and “market-leading.” The top prize for the 2025 competition is more than $500,000.The lawsuit, filed this week, claims that Playboy saw Maxim’s success and stole the idea to create its own contest.“Playboy embarked on an intentional and deliberate scheme to misappropriate and exploit Maxim’s proprietary technologies and information,” the suit alleges.Playboy is accused of registering dummy accounts for Maxim’s competition to access and duplicate features that are proprietary.The Great Playmate Search launched last year to find a Playmate of the Month for Playboy. Maxim claims the contest was such a copycat that the rules were virtually identical copies of relevant portions of Maxim’s rules.Maxim also claims Playboy is using defective vote tracking that erodes consumer trust in their own contest platform. “Once eroded, trust cannot be restored by monetary relief,” the suit alleges.The lawsuit alleges that Playboy made false and misleading statements to investors by saying its contest was a proprietary innovation. Playboy’s chief executive officer and president, Ben Kohn, boasted on an August 2025 earnings call that the contest could bring in “millions and millions of dollars of revenue.”Maxim’s suit, filed in the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York, is seeking an injunction and a jury trial for damages.Playboy did not immediately respond to The New York Sun’s request for comment.

Maxim Starts Legal Cat-Fight With Playboy Over Modeling Competition

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