Pro-imaging.org has done a service by exposing this oversight of Microsoft in their contest. But in all fairness Microsoft haven't used the images commercially and I am sure their lawyers would make sure they obtained rights before they did. Microsoft did update their rules to specifically point out that some images may be rights-restricted and wouldn't be eligible for the contest.

Let he who has never used a royalty-free image cast the first stone.

I am always kind of amazed how prevalent image misuse is. If the blunder had not been so public, Microsoft probably would have patted themselves on the back for their great cross marketing experiment.

I've worked on both ends of the misuse spectrum, myself. I remember working for a ex-major computer catalog company, and competitors would go as far as scanning images right out of our catalog, for their own use.

Then I worked for an online shopping site, and I lost count how many times I was told "...just pull the images from their website." Sounds harmless enough, right?

Well, then we did a cross promotion with a major cartoon mouse company. I got pulled into our lawyer's office, to explain why I thought it was ok to pull images from said mouse's website, and then explain that to the mouse's lawyers.

Copyright law is a slippery slope to mess with. Just assuming a copyright owner will be OK with "some free publicity", as the marketing dept said about the previous mouse incident, could land one in a lot of hot water.