I'm one of those fools who asked nicely... most of the times you don't hear nothing. But sometimes you make new friends. I've got nice mail from John Lund himself. He's great with elephants!!!
http://www.johnlund.com/dataview2.asp?ID1=humor



But I can't use them... he sold them all

And Nathasa Fadeeva from Russia... she always say: oké, use them and good luck!
She make hand stufed mice etc. http://www.fadeeva.com/




I always send the url of the contest.
There is a lot of talented and sweet people out there, in the real world

if someone dropped it, be careful picking it up!

as far as the copyright issue, I always use ok to use images from websites mentioned in our long, long list of what images to use... usually stock.xchange or freelargephotos or freerangestock... and occasionally a commons like wikicommons.

see this post, scroll down to see the many sites I listed where you can find art to use: http://photoshopcontest.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=192564

I only use google for ideas, it's not a free to use catalog - as I tell people who ask if I can use this image or that they found on google, in some one's ad. No, of course not! Even have people take screen shots of images they find on sites like shutterstock -- still with the big X and watermark on it... can you use this? no, duh!

and every year we get people that want to put super bowl or the football brand logo .... no, still can't use it. we don't have a football emoticon!

and if I notice an obvious violation, you bet I'll tell a mod or you.