Attorneys representing Playboy Magazine have filed a lawsuit against Harper's Bazaar publisher Hearst Communications for infringement over the magazine's online publication of copyrighted photos of fashion legend Kate Moss.

The Associated Press reports that legal documents filed in federal court in Manhattan on Friday reveal that the magazine violated Playboy's exclusive rights to publish pictures from the nude Kate Moss pictorial featured in Playboy's 60th anniversary issue.

According to the suit, Harper's posted on its website a (clothed) photo of the iconic supermodel and provided a link that took readers to another site where several of the photos from the 60th anniversary spread were made available.

The New York Daily News reports that the hyperlink on the Harper's website read "See Kate Moss' Full Fab Playboy Spread."

Visitors who clicked on the link were led to a website called "Entertainment.ie" that told readers to "save yourself a fiver. Here's Kate Moss' NSFW spread from Playboy." The linked page featured nine of the over two dozen nude and partially nude photos from the playboy pictorial featured in the January/February 2014 issue, which is currently available on newsstands.

The lawsuit says that Harper's owner "Hearst's link to the Entertainment.ie website page cannot be justified by any suggestion that Hearst was reporting the news of Ms. Moss's appearance in the 60th anniversary issue."

Additionally, according to court documents Playboy says that it "welcomed the media's reporting and discussion of its images," but Hearst "well exceeded the bounds of mere news reporting" in an alleged bid "to attract and drive Internet visitor traffic."

Playboy reportedly tried to settle the matter "amicably" but was brutally rebuffed. As such, Playboy says it is asking Hearst to pay $150,000 for each piece of "infringed work," for a total of approximately $1.35 million.

Representatives for Harper's Bazaar were not available for comment on the story as of Friday afternoon.

Moss, whose 40th birthday celebration coincides with the Playboy 60th anniversary edition, was first discovered and recruited to the world of modeling in 1988 at age 14. She reportedly rose to fame in the early 1990s as part of the "heroin chic" fashion trend and has been heavily involved in the modeling and fashion worlds ever since.

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