Updates on the Lara Jade Case

Back in May, I reported on Lara Jade Coton, a professional photographer who discovered that a self portrait she took of herself when she was fourteen was used as the cover art for a pornographic DVD.

Later, in July, she filed a lawsuit against the company behind the DVD, TVX Films, with the aid of a Tampa lawyer, Richard Harrison.

There has been little movement on the lawsuit. According to Harrison, TVX Films has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds but not much else has happened.

However, a forum posting earlier this month on Model Mayhem has pointed to another controversy with TVX films and, possibly at least, another set of legal troubles for the company.

A Potential Pattern

In the forum, a poster named Manuel Rego highlighted the cover of TVX Films’ movie Sunny (NSFW), which appears to have used a photograph entitled “Flowers” (nsfw) by a Russian photographer known as “Roge”.

According to Rego. he was able to get in contact with Roge and said in another posting that the photographer had no idea that the photo was being used and that he was upset about it.

No word about whether or not the photographer involved is considering action against TVX films for the use of the photo.

The forum conversation also discusses, and in fact started with, another image used on the cover of the TVX film “StarBabe” that appears to come from pinup photographer Octavio Arizala (noisy site and nsfw), also known as Winkytiki.

The cover photo on the Starbabe DVD seems to be a doctored version of a photo he shot of a woman holding a science fiction pistol. The photo can be seen on his Web site in various places though I could not find a direct link to the photo.

According to Harrison, who sent me the link to the Model Mayhem forum, “If you look at the three cases (Lara Jade and these other two) you will find that all three had their work on Deviant Art website and all three
photographers reside outside the U.S. Seems like a deliberate pattern, and not sheer coincidence, to me.”

Harrison goes on to say that he does not represent any of the other photographers involved and can not comment on what action they might be taking.

I sent an email to Arizala for comment but he did not respond before the posting of this article. I will update this piece if he does.

It is unclear what, if anything, will come of these allegations. However, photographers and models are being encouraged to take a look at the TVX site, linked in the original forum post, and see if your work has been used by them. I would add that is especially true if you are an international photographer that has used deviantArt and takes photos that might be of interest for this type of use.

Clearly though, there is much about this case that is unresolved and I will continue to bring you more updates as they come to light.

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