Rihanna wins UK court case ordering Top Shop to stop selling T-shirts featuring her picture/Twitter/Rundschau
Rihanna wins UK court case ordering Topshop to stop selling T-shirts featuring her picture/Twitter/Rundschau

Pop icon Rihanna has won a UK court case ordering Topshop to stop selling t-shirts featuring her picture.

The star and two Los Angeles-based associate firms had sued Sir Philip Green's high street retail firm for £3.3m, after it allegedly used her image without authorisation.

The t-shirts, originally sold under the name Rihanna Tank, featured an image taken by a paparazzi photographer without Rihanna's permission while she was filming a video in Northern Ireland in 2011.

According to court documents, Topshop removed Rihanna's name from the t-shirt after being challenged by her lawyers, rebranding the garment as Headscarf Girl Tank and then Icon Tank.

However the retailer continued to use Rihanna's image, claiming her request for its withdrawal was unjustifiable.

In his summary, Mr Justice Birss said that a "substantial number" of buyers would have bought the T-shirt in the belief that Rihanna had approved it, and decreed that the sale of the garment undermined Rihanna's reputation in the "fashion sphere".

The judge added: "There is no such thing as a general right by a famous person to control the reproduction of their image. The taking of the photograph is not suggested to have breached Rihanna's privacy.

"The mere sale by a trader of a T-shirt bearing an image of a famous person is not an act of passing off. However, I find that Topshop's sale of this T-shirt was an act of passing off."

Birss did not specify the amount of compensation to be paid to Rihanna, who brought the suit under her full name of Robyn Rihanna Fenty.