Originally Posted by Mutt

there's no shame in having one of your photos on the cover of Time magazine but the emergence of what is called 'micro stock' is a financial blow for photographers, illustrators, artists - rather than spend thousands of dollars hiring a talented artist to design a CD cover big companies can browse micro stock agencies like iStockPhoto's website with hundreds of thousands of images and with a little Photoshop work produce a CD or book cover cover for a hundred dollars.

that is not good for the creative arts profession. it's a race to the bottom.