The BBC reports that Mr Justice Birss made it clear in his ruling that there was no such thing as a general right by a famous person to control the reproduction of their image.
"The mere sale by a trader of a T-shirt bearing an image of a famous person is not an act of passing off,” he said.
But he ruled that in this case, Topshop’s sale of the T-Shirt, complete with a photo of the singer taken without her permission and originally marketed as the "Rihanna Tank", amounted to passing off.