Ali v. Playgirl: A Drawing Can Be a Likeness

A federal court enjoined a nude drawing recognizable as Muhammad Ali, holding New York's statute reaches any portrait, not just photographs.

By Lidiia Levitska  ·  July 11, 2026
An empty boxing ring with ropes and corner stool under overhead lights
A drawing of a figure seated in a boxing ring corner, captioned to evoke Ali, triggered New York's right-of-privacy statute. Shutterstock
Educational content, not legal advice. This article explains general legal concepts. It does not create an attorney–client relationship. For your specific situation, consult a licensed attorney.

In Ali v. Playgirl, Inc., 447 F. Supp. 723 (S.D.N.Y. 1978), the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held that a person can be identified, and his rights violated, by a drawing rather than a photograph. The February 1978 issue of Playgirl magazine carried an objectionable portrait of a nude Black man seated in the corner of a boxing ring, with facial features and close-cropped hair recognizable as the heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali. The figure was captioned “Mystery Man,” and an accompanying verse described him as “the Greatest,” Ali’s own well-known appellation. Ali moved for a preliminary injunction. District Judge Gagliardi granted it on March 3, 1978, holding that the drawing was an actionable use of Ali’s likeness under New York Civil Rights Law sections 50 and 51 and that the magazine’s newsworthiness defense did not apply to what was, in substance, a fictional and commercial portrayal.

The decision is a canonical name, image, and likeness authority for two propositions: that a statutory “portrait or picture” is not limited to photographs, and that an unmistakable artistic rendering combined with an identifying nickname can equal an actionable use of identity. It remains a staple of publicity casebooks nearly half a century later.

At a glance

  • Case: Ali v. Playgirl, Inc., 447 F. Supp. 723 (S.D.N.Y. 1978).
  • Decided: March 3, 1978 by District Judge Gagliardi; plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction granted against Playgirl, Inc.
  • Holding: A drawing recognizable as the plaintiff is a “portrait or picture” within New York Civil Rights Law section 51, and its unconsented commercial use, not shielded by newsworthiness, warrants injunctive relief.
  • Status: A preliminary-injunction ruling, never reviewed on appeal, but influential; its statutory holding endures, while its common-law right-of-publicity rationale was later displaced by Stephano v. News Group Publications.

The statutory frame: New York sections 50 and 51

New York does not recognize a broad common-law privacy tort. Instead, its protection is statutory. Civil Rights Law section 50 makes it a misdemeanor to use a living person’s name, portrait, or picture for advertising or trade purposes without written consent, and section 51 supplies the civil remedy, including an injunction and damages, for the same conduct. The statute is narrow by design: it reaches uses “for advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade,” and it requires that the plaintiff be identifiable in the offending “portrait or picture.”

One question the case is remembered for is whether that phrase reaches a drawing. The court’s answer was that it does, and it treated the point as settled rather than open: the defendants, it said, could not seriously dispute that the drawing was Ali’s “portrait or picture,” because New York had long read the phrase functionally rather than by medium. Their actual argument ran elsewhere, to Ali’s status as a public figure who courted publicity.

The facts and the “Greatest” caption

The illustration depicted a nude Black man sitting on a stool in the corner of a boxing ring, both hands taped and outstretched along the ropes. The court found the cheekbones, broad nose, wide-set brown eyes, distinctive smile, and close-cropped black hair recognizable as Muhammad Ali’s. Two textual cues reinforced the identification. The figure was labeled “Mystery Man,” inviting the reader to name him, and the accompanying verse referred to him as “the Greatest,” a phrase the public strongly associated with Ali. Ali had not consented to the use, a point the defendants did not seriously dispute.

Taken together, the visual and textual elements left little doubt that the ordinary reader would recognize the subject. That recognition, not the technical medium of the image, was what the statute required.

The core holding: a portrait need not be a photograph

The court held that the statutory phrase “portrait or picture” is not confined to photographs but comprises any representation that is recognizable as a likeness of the person depicted. A drawing that unmistakably conveys the plaintiff’s appearance is as much a “portrait” as a photograph. Because the illustration was recognizable as Ali, and because it appeared in a commercial magazine for purposes the court treated as trade rather than protected reporting, the section 51 claim was likely to succeed.

This holding matters because it decouples liability from the method of depiction. What controls is whether the audience perceives the plaintiff. An illustrator’s hand, a caricature, or a painted rendering can appropriate identity just as a camera can, so long as the result is identifiable. The “Greatest” reference in the verse strengthened the analysis by supplying an additional, verbal identifier that pointed to a single, specific person.

Newsworthiness rejected and the irreparable-harm finding

Playgirl invoked the newsworthiness privilege, the principle that using a public figure’s name or image in connection with a matter of legitimate public interest is not a use “for trade” within the statute. The court declined to apply it. It characterized the drawing and verse as a fictionalized, fictional portrayal rather than a genuine dissemination of news or fact about Ali. The privilege protects the flow of information, not the commercial exploitation of a recognizable figure in a work of invention, and the magazine’s use fell on the wrong side of that line.

The court also found that Ali was likely to prevail on a related common-law right of publicity, emphasizing his proprietary interest in the commercial value of his identity. That proprietary characterization, together with the difficulty of quantifying the harm from an unauthorized nude depiction, supported a finding of irreparable injury and justified preliminary injunctive relief against continued distribution of the issue by Playgirl, Inc., including its planned distribution in England. The court did not enjoin the New York news distributor, Independent News Company. Independent had already been scheduled to pull the issue from newsstands and stipulated to impound the returned copies, so Ali withdrew his request for an injunction against it, and the court simply directed Independent to keep the impounded copies until further order.

Open questions

  • How recognizable is recognizable enough? The court found the drawing unmistakable, but offered no general threshold for when an illustration crosses from generic to identifiable, leaving that to case-by-case assessment.
  • How much work does a caption do? The “Greatest” verse reinforced identification. The opinion did not isolate whether the image alone, without the verbal cue, would have sufficed.
  • Where is the boundary with satire and art? By labeling the piece fiction rather than commentary, the court sidestepped harder cases in which an expressive or satirical drawing of a public figure claims First Amendment protection.
  • What remained of the common-law theory? The opinion’s reliance on a common-law right of publicity became doubtful in New York after later appellate authority, leaving the statute to carry the doctrine.

Implications for creators and businesses

  • Medium is not a defense. A hand-drawn or painted likeness can violate New York’s statute exactly as a photograph would. Illustrators and publishers cannot assume that avoiding a camera avoids liability.
  • Captions and context identify people. Words that point to a specific individual, including nicknames and signature phrases, can convert an ambiguous image into a recognizable “portrait.” Clearance analysis must consider text as well as picture.
  • Newsworthiness does not cover invented depictions. The privilege shields genuine reporting, not fictional or ornamental uses in commercial publications. Framing something as editorial does not immunize a use that is in substance for trade.
  • Confirm New York’s exclusive statutory route. Because New York recognizes no common-law right of publicity, plan claims and defenses around sections 50 and 51, and treat older common-law language in Ali with the Stephano caveat in mind.

Frequently asked questions

Does New York’s right-of-privacy statute cover drawings, not just photographs? Yes. In Ali v. Playgirl, the court held that the phrase “portrait or picture” in New York Civil Rights Law sections 50 and 51 is not limited to photographs. It reaches any representation that is recognizable as a likeness of the plaintiff. Because the drawing was unmistakably identifiable as Muhammad Ali, it fell within the statute even though it was an illustration rather than a photo.

Why did the newsworthiness defense fail? The court characterized the drawing and accompanying verse as a fictionalized, fictional portrayal rather than a bona fide report of news or fact. The newsworthiness privilege protects the dissemination of information about public figures, but it does not license the commercial exploitation of a recognizable likeness in a work of fiction. Because the use was for the purpose of trade and not genuinely informational, the defense did not apply.

Is Ali v. Playgirl still good law in New York? Its central statutory holding survives: a drawing recognizable as a person is a “portrait or picture” under sections 50 and 51. But the opinion also relied in part on a common-law right of publicity, and the New York Court of Appeals later held in Stephano v. News Group Publications that New York recognizes no common-law right of publicity, making the statute the exclusive vehicle. Cite the statutory holding with that caveat.

Authorities and sources

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Lidiia Levitska
About the Author

Lidiia Levitska

International Intellectual Property Attorney

Lidiia Levitska focuses on intellectual property dispute resolution, policy, and advisory work across international institutions and government bodies. From 2021 to 2025 she served at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), managing arbitration cases and overseeing compliance with the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), and earlier led IP policy research as a Senior Policy Officer at the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine. She holds an LL.M. in International Intellectual Property Law from Chicago-Kent College of Law and an M.A. in Information Technology Law from the University of Tartu, and was admitted to the Ukrainian Bar in 2019.

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