I agree with the fact that I thought all the clipart provided by in the ClipArt library was copyright free. Why else put it out there as such if it wasn't?
What MS didn't bother to do (or maybe they just didn't care) was to make sure it's replacement was an equal or better replacement. Such as the licensing agreement - it took me almost a week to figure out where to find how to search for the licensing options
(strict, public domain, free to share and use, etc).
First off, searching through the Bing.com search box on Word, doesn't even give you this option. You have to go to the Bing.com browser to get the options. Secondly, even after choosing the option free to use and share ( for example), yeilds results in
which pictures/clipart have watermarks all through them. Who is going to use a picture with watermarks all through it. If it's free to use and share, shouldn't those NOT be there? This occurs for at least 80% of the pictures. I've tried it.
Thirdly, even after selecting a licensing option such as free to use and share, you are still suppose to go to the site and check out the agreement (why I'm not sure, but that's what the steps said when I checked them out - How to download clipart on Bing.com
-- but once you get to the site, it doesn't explain how to check out the licensing agreement.
Now, I can understand the need for some sort of agreement, but this now takes away from other Word features, such as the ungroup feature. With the Office.com ClipArt, you could insert a picture, ungroup it and change say the color of a section of the clipart
to better fit the theme of the paper. Now that option doesn't even exist. There is a licensing option of Free to Modify, Share and Use Commercially. Just for the fun of it I selected this option; 4 image resulted -- 4!! Now, I didn't try to insert and ungroup,
so whether the feature even works with this license agreement or not. I don't know.
Size is another feature that is now limited. You could insert a clipart feature then enlarge as large as you needed to so it fit your document. Now, through Bing, you can only enlarge the clipart to a certain size then it starts to look grainy and blurry.
Now, I'm a student and used the free clipart to complete assignments. Assigments now can not be completed properly because the picture needed may not be available through Bing or only be available with watermarks through it. What MS should have done was
no longer carried the Office.com option from any new releases of Word, etc or made sure Bing.com was up to pare with the features Office.com offered.