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Comment by foobarqux | Hacker News Reader

Which would make it against the law and therefore illegal. However, I think it's more accurate to say retailers don't mention the word Super Bowl because they are likely to be sued, irrespective of whether there is a credible claim, trademark or otherwise. I think in the vast majority of cases there is no such legitimate claim.

The same situation occurs with the Olympics. The IOC sues entities not because they are worried that someone is going to get confused about their brand but so they can charge those entities for using it in their promotions.

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>Which would make it against the law and therefore illegal. //

Worth remembering it's tort not crime.

[Not that you're saying it's criminal, just that sometimes illegal is taken to mean criminal whilst torts and such are described instead as unlawful.]

I believe the difference between illegal and unlawful was the difference between black and white listing. As in, illegal means a specific act is banned and unlawful means doing something outside of what was prescribed for that situation.

I don't think there's a large moral component to the respective use of each word, it's more of a mathematical concept. That said, odds are "DON'T DO THAT" is usually going to have a stronger moral force behind it than "YOU CAN ONLY DO IT THIS WAY" since people can come up with creative situations that weren't thought of at the time the law was written, and of course it varies based on the situation (people will probably be more pissy if you handle nuclear material in an unlawful way than if you jaywalk for instance).

I think the Olympics is slightly different, the IOC normally requires host countries to enact laws giving them special privileges for the event.

"Since the Sydney Games in 2000, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has required bidding governments to commit to introducing bespoke legislation to offer a further layer of legal sanction." http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/apr/13/olympics-2012-b...

"Expressions likely to be considered a breach of the rules would include any two of the following list: "Games, Two Thousand and Twelve, 2012, Twenty-Twelve". Using one of those words with London, medals, sponsors, summer, gold, silver or bronze is another likely breach."

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