Now, it's possible they paid for the license and then kept the watermark to make a point, but hmmm....I don't know.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/h2/fbae/sproutbyhp/14-secrets-designers-will-never-tell-you

Funny pitch. Then I clicked and saw that it was $1900 to start...

I think #1 explains the leaving the watermarks on? "They regularly get crushes on stock imagery people." But I could be wrong.

Windows 8, the worst PC OS interface ever devised by humans. I think I'll pass.

just disable the whole Metro interface and install Classic Start, no big deal.

by the way, both Sinofsky and Ballmer have been fired after the Win 8 debacle ...

Now, it's possible they paid for the license and then kept the watermark to make a point, but hmmm....I don't know.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/h2/fbae/sproutbyhp/14-secrets-designers-will-never-tell-you

Looks ridiculous when exposed this way on website of such level company. They started to promote this stock site?
BTW - agree with all negatifs to Windows 8. Set gamer user above business and stop Windows 7, which was much more usable for office. What means disable tablet interface then use computer - MS spitting in the direction of business users. Which sick brain sets touch screen interface as the main one on a machine which is not enabled for that? They were fired but who will count damage done to MS and users? Loss of time and already working business applications etc.

It's possible they paid. But I worked at a small ad agency where I discovered, after I became Creative Director, that the designers were stealing the small unwatermarked previews of stock shots to use in banner ads�for a huge multinational computer corporation. They paid for the large images for print ads because they had to get the high resolution for that. I only found out because I asked about the budget. I called a meeting and gave everyone (including the agency owner) a huge lecture about exposing the agency and the client to legal liability over this stupidity, all to save a couple of dollars. I made sure they paid for every single image after that. I'm still amazed by it...but then, that agency was famous for underhanded shenanigans. That's why I quit.

It's possible they paid. But I worked at a small ad agency where I discovered, after I became Creative Director, that the designers were stealing the small unwatermarked previews of stock shots to use in banner ads�for a huge multinational computer corporation. They paid for the large images for print ads because they had to get the high resolution for that. I only found out because I asked about the budget. I called a meeting and gave everyone (including the agency owner) a huge lecture about exposing the agency and the client to legal liability over this stupidity, all to save a couple of dollars. I made sure they paid for every single image after that. I'm still amazed by it...but then, that agency was famous for underhanded shenanigans. That's why I quit.

When I first started my job it was pretty much common practice that if the designers couldn't find an image on our subscription service that would work they'd just steal them ... That lasted until I told them I'd get their asses sued.

istock allows you to zoom any image and with firefox you can save a 1280px watermarked image, if you can remove the watermark an image of that size is pretty much ok for web use, web design, templates, and much more.

example :

http://www.istockphoto.com/image-zoom/25350933/3/380/213/zoom-25350933-3.jpg

Are you trying to promote the theft of our own images?