Playboy and Plagiarism

As one of the most successful magazines ever published, Playboy has inevitably inspired imitation. The newest entrant in the flesh-fun-fashion field, however, brings the flattery of emulation to the border of plagiarism. Gallery, which went on sale last week, carries a cover slug that is identical in arrangement and type face to Playboy's, and is perhaps meant to be mistaken for it on newsstands by the nearsighted.

Inside Gallery, the Playboy pattern continues with astonishing fidelity. There is the "Gallery Interview" (with Columnist Jack Anderson, who also happens to be Playboy's interview subject for November), and a foldout "Gallery Girl of the Month." The female caricature that decorates Playboy's joke page is also to be found in Gallery, only this time she wears thigh-high boots instead of long stockings. But the quality of the new magazine's writing and photography is not in the same league with Playboy's; although Gallery's nudes are pretty and provocative, their charms are marred by poor printing. Among the few discernible differences in layout is Gallery's use of a symbol showing a lion inside a heart (lionhearted, get it?) in place of Playboy's bunny trademark.

Harmless Pastime. It is no accident that Gallery seems to be looking over Playboy's shoulder. Editor James Spurlock, 26, served three years in Playboy Publisher Hugh Hefner's shop, and has installed Gallery's staff of 17 in offices opposite Playboy editorial headquarters on Chicago's North Michigan Avenue. Ronald Fenton, 38, a onetime computer franchiser who is founder and chief stockholder of Gallery Enterprises, Inc., says that "we'll work our side of the street and let them work theirs."

Fenton has brought in F. Lee Bailey, the celebrated criminal lawyer and a longtime friend of Hefner's, to serve as the showcase publisher of Gallery. Cracks Bailey in Gallery's first issue: "You may expect a Hefty supply of dressed and undressed ladies in our pages which we intend to be beautiful, sensual and stimulating." He disclaims any "intent to enter the current publishing contest to see who can print the most daring display of pubic hair."

So total was Gallery's copying of Playboy in its first issue that Hefner's lawyers started inspecting it for possible copyright infringement, and Bailey reportedly rebuked Spurlock for overdoing the imitation. Gallery's next issue is to be partly redesigned, but Fenton is unworried. "All magazines," he says blandly, "have similarities."

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