After getting into bed with her rival Beyonce, high street store Topshop has lost a legal battle with Pop princess Rihanna after using one of her images to sell T-shirts…without her permission.
Full story below…
‘The Independent‘ reports:
In an important ruling on celebrity “image rights”, the Court of Appeal upheld a ban on the store selling a Rihanna “tank” sleeveless T-shirt without her permission.
Three appeal judges agreed with an earlier High Court ruling that marketing the fashion item without the 26-year-old singer’s approval amounts to “passing off”, a term used to enforce unregistered trademark rights.
Topshop lawyers had urged the appeal judges – Lord Justice Richards, Lord Justice Kitchin and Lord Justice Underhill – to rule that High Court judge Mr Justice Birss had misunderstood the law on celebrity merchandising.
The three judges unanimously dismissed the Topshop appeal.
In the lead judgment Lord Justice Kitchin ruled Mr Justice Birss “was entitled to find that the sale by Topshop of the T-shirt amounted to passing off”.
The judges also agreed that a substantial number of the 26-year-old pop diva’s fans were likely to be led into the false belief that she had authorised the T-shirt to carry her image.
Rihanna’s lawyers said the image was from an unauthorised photograph taken while the star was filming a video in Northern Ireland for one of her singles in 2011 and Topshop should remain banned from exploiting it.