Can't joe sue for them using that name?
You know Joe is going to talk to his lawyers about that.
Speaking as someone that’s been sued, as crazy as it sounds, you can literally sue anyone for anything. You could sue me (assuming you knew my name, etc) for a million dollars for playing music too loud and causing you emotional stress, or anything else you like. It’d be stupid and you’d get laughed out of court, but you could make me go through the trouble of dealing with it if you wanted to.
I’d imagine Joe wouldn’t win a lawsuit like that though. He holds the intellectual property rights for The JBP itself, but it’s really hard to win lawsuits that involve peoples’ names, or nicknames.
“New Rory and Mal” is a rag line from the podcast, sure. But since Rory and Mal are their names, I think it’d be hard to find a judge that wouldn’t lean towards them being able to use their own likeness to make money. Ultimately, they aren’t really damaging Joe with this shirt, and I don’t think they need to worry.
Also, lastly, Joe is looking awful right now in the industry. He’s self destructive, but I think he has enough sense to stop the bleeding by not pursuing an issue like this right now—most of the world is backing Rory and Mal on this.