Geekly Chic: Fashion: Rihanna Wins Topshop Legal Battle!

The songstress sued the British high street store for $5 million (£3.3 million) for using a photograph of her filming her video We Found Love, on their t-shirts. Rihanna said that the image was used without her consent and that due to the similarity of the picture to the one used on her album sleeve, fans may be confused into thinking that it was "genuine" endorsed merchandise with "an emotional connection to their heroine."

Topshop maintained that it was fully entitled to use the image because it bought the licence for the picture from the photographer who took it. The store's lawyers argued that the singer isn't legally able to make a monopoly on how her character is marketed.

The case judge, Mr Justice Birss, said that although the taking of the photograph had not breached Rihanna's privacy and there was "no such thing as a general right by a famous person to control the production of their image," in this particular instance the high street store was in the wrong.

"The mere sale by a trader of a t-shirt bearing an image of a famous person is not, without more, an act of passing off," he said. "However the sale of this image of this person on this garment by this shop in these circumstances is a different matter. I find that Topshop's sale of this Rihanna T-shirt without her approval was an act of passing off."

Topshop is yet to comment..

SOURCE: BBC

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