Getty have been doing this for several years.

On a related topic, this is a eye-opening story for our industry...
http://www.out-law.com/page-10367
a small removals firm was successfully sued this month by Getty Images for £2000 plus costs, for unauthorized use of their images on the removal company's website. Most small companies would assume their web developer has the rights to any images used on their website...but this is a big assumption it seems.

Now they have a precedent case, expect many more demands for unauthorised use to be sent out by Getty Images. They have a reverse image search engine and so can search the whole web for unauthorised use of their images. Apparently they are asking for £800 for use of a very ordinary, but unauthorised, image. Quite a bit more than a similar £6 iStockphoto image!

Getty Images sue the publisher, not the e-learning designer. So anyone buying e-learning in the UK should ensure they have a clause in their contract indemnifying them against any future action for unauthorised use of images in their content.

Sorry, I didn't understand. I can see no reason why anyone would do this except perhaps to try and kid a client that they were doing more than they really were. Adobe Illustrator makes it simple to create an illustration from a photo, so I wouldn't assume there's an actual illustrator involved.

I have no problem with people using stock images. I just can't understand why someone would pay illustrators to reproduce very close copies of these images if they have paid for the right to use them. There was a case a number of years ago where an artist who made an almost exact copy of a stock image in CorelDraw got prosecuted.

I use iStockPhoto images regularly and they are quite explicity royalty-free. You do have to make a payment for this right, but it is typically only a few pounds per image. The downside is that, like clip art, you see the same images all over the place.

50/50 really may not be illegal but its rather un ethical