A recent Southern District of New York decision denying Maxim’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Playboy is a useful reminder that not every instance of alleged copying gives rise to a viable IP claim. Maxim alleged that Playboy copied the mechanics and architecture of Maxim’s online modeling competition and sought emergency relief based on claims for copyright infringement and a kitchen sink of “IP-adjacent” theories. Judge Koeltl denied the motion, holding that Maxim waited too long to establish irreparable harm and was unlikely to succeed on the merits. The opinion is particularly notable for its treatment of copyright law’s limits and its skepticism toward attempts to use overlapping legal theories to create de facto exclusivity over publicly observable business mechanics.

Breakdown of the Case

Maxim alleged that Playboy copied the framework of Maxim’s online “cover girl” competition, including parallel voting tournaments, rolling entries, overtime voting mechanics, contestant brackets, fan voting systems, monetization tied to voting, and other operational features.

The complaint asserted a kitchen-sink collection of claims, including copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation, breach of contract, unfair competition, tortious interference, unjust enrichment, and copyright management information (CMI) violations under the DMCA.

Maxim moved for a preliminary injunction, extraordinary relief that required it to establish, among other things, irreparable harm and a likelihood of success on the merits.

The court found Maxim demonstrated neither.

Delay Undercut Any Claim of Irreparable Harm

The court first concluded that Maxim failed to establish irreparable harm because it waited far too long to seek emergency relief. Playboy launched its contest in August 2025. Maxim admittedly knew about it no later than October 2025 but did not move for a preliminary injunction until January 2026, after the competition had already concluded. The court found that timing fundamentally inconsistent with Maxim’s claim of imminent irreparable injury.

The delay problem was compounded by Maxim’s own communications. Rather than accusing Playboy of infringement or demanding the contest stop, Maxim’s principal emailed Playboy expressing “excitement” about the contest’s “revenue potential” and proposing a future partnership under which Maxim would help operate the competition. Courts tend not to view that as consistent with an existential competitive threat requiring emergency judicial intervention.

Copyright: Competition Mechanics Are Not Protectable Expression

Maxim alleged that Playboy violated Maxim’s copyrights because Playboy’s contest structure and rules bore “striking similarities” to Maxim’s competition, including:

• competition structure
• voting systems
• scoring formats
• contestant progression mechanics
• prize structures
• winner validation procedures
• operational rules and processes

The court rejected the claim, concluding those features concerned “structure, mechanics, content, and scènes à faire,” not protectable expression. Critically, Maxim did not show that Playboy copied the actual expressive language, arrangement, or presentation of Maxim’s materials.

The court’s reasoning tracks longstanding precedent addressing games, contests, and interactive systems. Courts routinely reject attempts to use copyright law to monopolize rules, systems, mechanics, progression structures, scoring methodologies, and similar functional elements. Copyright can protect artwork, text, audiovisual assets, dialogue, and other expressive content. It generally does not protect how a game or competition works.

The court also identified standing issues with some of Maxim’s copyright registrations because a third party, Pacific Digital Industries, was listed as the copyright claimant. Even assuming assignments existed, Maxim failed to show that accrued infringement claims had been expressly transferred.

Trade Secrets: Publicly Accessible Systems Are Probably Not Secret

The court rejected Maxim’s attempt to treat its competition mechanics as a trade secret. Trade secret protection requires genuine efforts to preserve secrecy. Here, the competition was publicly accessible to participants. To get around that problem, Maxim pointed to Terms of Service prohibiting users from copying or exploiting the website content.

The court was not persuaded. It found no evidence Playboy had actually assented to the Terms and, in any event, the Terms did not impose meaningful nondisclosure obligations regarding the competition functionality itself.

The Remaining Claims Fell Alongside the Core IP Theories

The remaining claims largely rose and fell with the copyright and trade secret theories.

The DMCA claim failed because Maxim did not plausibly allege that Playboy removed copyright management information from Maxim’s actual works. Instead, Maxim alleged that Playboy created a competing work without including Maxim’s CMI, which the court held was insufficient.

The contract claims failed on multiple grounds. To the extent they duplicated the copyright theory, the court held they were likely preempted by the Copyright Act. Separately, Maxim lacked evidence that Playboy had actually assented to the Terms of Service. The court also applied familiar browsewrap principles, holding that merely viewing the website would not create binding assent to terms buried behind a hyperlink.

The tortious interference, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition claims similarly failed because they depended on the same underlying theory of wrongful copying and misappropriation. Once the core IP theories weakened, the adjacent claims largely collapsed with them.

Thoughts and Takeaways

1. The Law Does Not Protect Everything

Companies often invest substantial resources developing successful products, workflows, mechanics, and user experiences. But the law does not automatically grant exclusivity over something simply because it required significant effort or proved commercially valuable. “They copied us” is different than “they violated a protectable legal right.”

That distinction matters not only when assessing whether rights exist in the first place, but also when evaluating and dismantling overaggressive plaintiff theories attempting to stretch IP doctrines beyond their intended boundaries.

Clients do not always want to hear that the thing they spent years building may not actually be protectable IP, which can create pressure to overextend legal theories or pursue litigation built more around perceived unfairness than enforceable rights. One of the most valuable things lawyers can do is provide a realistic assessment at the front end about what IP law protects, what it does not protect, and where practical measures may matter more than litigation.

2. Courts Are Skeptical of “Adjacent” Theories Used To Expand IP Protection

One of the more notable aspects of the decision is how thoroughly the court dismantled the effort to use overlapping legal theories to extend protection beyond what copyright law actually permits.

When copyright or patent law does not protect the subject matter at issue, plaintiffs often attempt to repackage the same grievance through trade secrets, contract theories, unfair competition, unjust enrichment, tortious interference, or similar claims. Courts are generally reluctant to go there, and this court was no exception.

Once the court concluded the competition mechanics themselves were not protectable, the remaining claims began to look less like independent causes of action and more like alternative labels attached to the same basic theory.

3. Preliminary Injunctions Require Actual Urgency

The court’s irreparable harm analysis is also a reminder that preliminary injunctions are supposed to address genuine emergencies.

If a plaintiff truly faces imminent irreparable harm, courts expect immediate action. Delay almost always becomes a major problem. Here, the delay was compounded by emails praising the alleged infringer’s business opportunity and proposing future collaboration. That is a difficult record to reconcile with claims of urgent, existential injury.

4. Litigation Is Not the Only Way To Protect Valuable Systems and Information

One theme running through the opinion is that Maxim appeared to rely heavily on after-the-fact litigation theories to protect business mechanics that may have been difficult to protect as a matter of IP law in the first place.

But companies have other tools available beyond copyright lawsuits and expansive “adjacent” claims. Technical controls, access restrictions, API limitations, confidentiality agreements, carefully drafted platform terms, internal compartmentalization, monitoring systems, and contractual restrictions can often provide more practical protection than attempting to stretch IP doctrines beyond their intended boundaries.

In many situations, the strongest protection strategy is operational, contractual, or technical rather than litigation-driven.

5. Thank the Adult Industry for Developing Internet and IP Law

This case follows a surprisingly distinguished lineage of foundational media, copyright, and internet-law decisions involving the adult entertainment industry, provocative publishers, or generally raunch-adjacent disputes.

See, e.g., Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Moral Majority, Inc., 606 F. Supp. 1526 (C.D. Cal. 1985) (fair use ruling allowing Rev. Jerry Falwell to mass-copy a Hustler page attacking him because the copying did not harm the market for the magazine); Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Frena, 839 F. Supp. 1552 (M.D. Fla. 1993) (early internet copyright case holding a bulletin board service liable for hosting Playboy images, frequently credited with highlighting the need for the DMCA safe harbor framework); Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994) (2 Live Crew parody case that became one of the Supreme Court’s most important fair use decisions); Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Netscape Communications Corp., 354 F.3d 1020 (9th Cir. 2004) (landmark keyword advertising and internet trademark case); and Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146 (9th Cir. 2007) (critical fair use and search-engine precedent involving thumbnail images of nude models).

For reasons perhaps best left to legal historians and psychologists, courts repeatedly end up shaping major media and internet-law doctrine in disputes involving pornography, satire, obscenity, or aggressively unserious subject matter. This opinion fits comfortably within that tradition.