Pope Francis dolls?

Here’s a Right of Publicity fact pattern to kick around:  can a company make Pope Francis dolls without a license from the Pope?

I don’t know if the recently announced Pope Francis dolls from Bleacher Creatures are licensed or not, so I want to be clear on that point and allow for the possibility that they are.  Bleacher Creatures primarily makes 10″ dolls of famous athletes, and they wouldn’t be doing that without permission.

In the link below, I find it interesting that the company is said to be “crossing their T’s and dotting their I’s” but the extent of that due diligence appears to be simply that they “reached out to the Vatican” and “would love to officially partner with them.”  Taken at face value, that strongly indicates that they do not have any form of permission to make the dolls.

Of course, “reaching out” coupled with a statement of desire to “officially partner” is not all that is needed to proceed with commercial products of a famous person.  Perhaps the play here is that the Pope isn’t likely to file a claim over it, but last time I checked, “likelihood of getting away with it” was not the legal standard for Right of Publicity infringement.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/16/smallbusiness/pope-francis-plush-doll/index.html