A British teenage photographer is suing an American film company after it used a self-portrait she took when she was 14 on the cover of a pornographic DVD.

Lara Jade Coton, who is now 18, discovered that a photograph of her wearing a ball dress and top hat was the cover art for Body Magic, a film distributed by TVX, a Texas-based company.

Ms Coton, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, said that she was “absolutely horrified” and wrote to the company to ask for its removal and for compensation. The company responded: “Nice try, toots.”

Bob Burge, the head of TVX, said that he would remove her image from the DVD cover but not because of her claim. “Actually, removing your image will help improve the sell [sic] of the DVD,” he wrote. “So far it has bombed.”

Ms Coton told The Times that she had uploaded the image to her home page on Deviantart, a website used by artists to showcase their work. “That is the only place I put it, so they must have got it from there,” she said. “I complained directly to the company at first. I just got back a load of abuse. They blamed my picture for the poor sales of the DVD. They said, ‘You’re not even that well known. We’ve checked up on you’.”

Mr Burge, 66, acknowledged that he had used the image but claims that it is in the public domain. “The freelance guy who does the artwork for us, he says he found the picture on an adult porn site,” he said.

“I think we have been the most responsible company. I have a granddaughter, so do I sympathise? Yes. I don’t want her image used on a DVD cover.”

The company, which says it has an annual turnover of $60,000 (£30,000), removed the photograph from the DVD cover, but not from the DVD itself, according to Richard Harrison, Ms Coton’s lawyer. Mr Harrison claims to have been able to obtain six copies of the DVD despite assurances from TVX that it had removed the images. Ms Coton has filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Tampa, Florida, which accuses TVX Films and Mr Burge of copyright infringement, civil conspiracy, misappropriation of her image, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Mr Harrison, of the law firm Allen Dell, said that when Ms Coton contacted the film company, Mr Burge had responded by ridiculing her. “Adding insult to injury, the company had the audacity to blame Lara Jade for the disappointing sales of its porn movie,” he said.

“We’re asking a jury to award damages, including punitive damages, for the outrageous conduct of Mr Burge and TVX. We’re also asking the court to stop these pornographers from using the picture and to impound any copies of the movie or other materials on which Lara Jade’s picture appears.

“If it’s not a crime to put a 14-year-old child on the cover of a porn video, it sure ought to be.”

Mr Harrison said the case showed how easily children could be victimised in the age of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. “This amazing technology allows us all to share our photos with friends and loved ones, but parents must real-ise that any picture a child puts on the internet is about three mouse clicks away from being stolen by anybody.”