Woody Allen awarded $5m in lawsuit

American Apparel have been ordered to pay $5m to film director Woody Allen over a ‘joke’ poster campaign.

Oscar-winning film director Woody Allen has been awarded a record $5m (£3.23m) in damages for the unauthorised use of his image by the clothing firm American Apparel.

In an out-of-court settlement in New York yesterday, American Apparel founder Dov Charney agreed to pay the legendary filmmaker compensation - half of the $10m Allen expected - for using a still from his multi-Oscar-winning flick Annie Hall without his permission. In return, Allen agreed to drop a copyright claim against Charney.

The image at the centre of the storm, which was erected for a few weeks in 2007 in several locations in Los Angeles and New York, shows Allen dressed in Hasidic Jewish clothing below a slogan written in Yiddish, reading ‘the holy rebbe', with an American Apparel logo in the corner. The scene, from which the picture was taken, depicts Allen as the Alvy Singer character at a dinner party hosted by Annie Hall's non-Jewish family, and to illustrate his incongruousness he imagines himself as an Hasidic Jew. In the case, Charney argued that the ‘joke' billboard was intended to show his personal discomfort during a time when he was being hit with a string of sexual harassment lawsuits from former employees.

The out of court settlement means the two men will avoid a potentially messy trial, in which salacious details of both their personal lives would have been scrutinised. Dov Charney argued in his defence that Allen's reputation was already tarnished due to his relationship with his former step-daughter and now wife, Soon-Yi Previn.

Dov Charney founded American Apparel in 1997 to make it one of the most successful brands on the US and UK high street, despite the numerous sexual misconduct cases laid against him. He said outside the court house yesterday, "The billboards were designed to inspire dialogue. They were certainly never intended to sell clothes."

Picture: Woody Allen as featured on one of the American Apparel billboards in 2007.