well.. there's a difference between copyrighted images and stock photos. if you do a
reverse image search on that eagle silhouette you ll notice that
different websites are actually selling this (making profit). can u tell who is the original author? i doubt it. are all these sites paying credit to the original creator? i doubt it either. even the original creator cant prove of his design because this vector is all over the internet and i cant find a license (creative common or anything) which protects him. only Royalty-free license if you know what this is. and most important. these websites sell these stock images for general purpose. not for personal use or something. commercial use is not excluded (with RF license). especially if this design is used as only a part of another design and not selling the actual image back as it is.
i could design an eagle from scratch but i used that to save time since everyone use stock images and since it's not against the rules of the competition. (and not only
this competition. i could use the exact same eagle as a large company logo and i wouldnt have any legal issues)
on the other hand, of course, if you make a rip-off a copyrighted logo and people are buying just because its related to a real football team logo (for example) you ll have copyright issues. that's the difference between stock images and copyrighted logos. this eagle is not a brand or anything.
nordeus should reward original designs if you ask me but that's another topic
maybe because you used an actual image (
copy pasted as well) as knight and not a vector with 2 or 3 colors as the rules of the competition require...?