Copyright is a grey area - I was selling my Wayne Rooney portrait as a little postcard print on Ebay and it got removed because apparently some tightarse at Umbro had complained about their logo being on the shirt! In a drawing!! Unbelievable!

I can understand the infringement on copyright in photo-retouching if you were selling prints or downloads, but otherwise it's a bit pedantic. As you say, there's plenty of other people doing the same thing.

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Awareness begins where words fail

Finally someone who understands!
They actually reacted on the logo? I would be less surprised if the photographer said the drawing itself was an infringement, being kind of a dopy of the original photo. I posted a drawing on a quite popular forum, and I had to take it down because of it being a copy of one of getty images photos. I wasn't even selling it!

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Jesus saves, but Rooney gets the rebound!
Fahrenheit-Designs.net

I think alot of it stems from the way photos can be photoshopped to look like drawings now - a genuine drawing, even using a photo as reference, isn't copyright infringement under UK law but the internet being cross-border makes companies twitchy about facing legal action, so they err on the side of caution.
Umbro seem to be fanatical about their logo because of fake sports clothing, but I can't see how it being an incidental part of a drawing is stealing their brand. Corporate insanity!

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Awareness begins where words fail