In a recent case from the Chancery Court, Rihanna, a prominent
pop star, successfully sued Topshop, a high street fashion
retailer, for passing off.
Topshop had been selling T-shirts emblazoned with a photograph
of Rihanna. The photograph had been taken by a freelance
photographer, so Rihanna had no intellectual property in the image
itself. Rather, she alleged that Topshop's use of the image
would lead consumers to believe that the T-shirt was official
Rihanna merchandise, and that they would buy the product as a
result of that mistaken belief.
Justice Birss was careful to note from the outset that the basis
for the action was not "so called image rights" to
control the reproduction of one's image. Such rights, while
recognised in the United States and Canada, do not exist in the
United Kingdom. Nor did the case fall under the umbrella of the
tort of invasion of privacy.
