At the University of Arizona, there was a strict expulsion and forfiture of earned credits policy for plagarism amongst undergrads. I'd say having wasted $20k is pretty high stakes, though I suppose not as high as jail time.
You can apply for the Low Budget Agreement on an indie film (defined as being under a particular budget amount I couldn't find), but it isn't required if you are in the guild. It was mainly created to protect individuals from larger studios - can't imagine much benefit from leveraging what are essentially personal projects.
I only ever use the image search for finding a high quality Album Cover (I still end up ripping my CDs these days, and prefer what I can find on GI than iTunes Auto Cover).
Doesn't that really depend upon the way that you treat the problem? If you're just looking to pass, what do you have to gain? This isn't a course in College.
But that's the inherent problem; these companies are still setup for a bureaucracy that works fine in a particular area of business, but completely crumbles under the new rules of the technological age. We shouldn't be apologetic for their resisting of change, but rather pushing them to take a long hard look at what needs to be reorganized to fit into the new paradigm.