It's not about how much work it is or if you did the best you could. It's also not about how many people did it before. Driving drunk is irresponsible and will always be irresponsible, regardless of the number of people who did it before. Although not directly comparable, the same is true for copyright infringement. It does not get better as others do it as well. I think it's pretty clear that you have gotten an advantage over the other contestants here as you used materials you were not allowed to use and the others had to work hard for. Additionally the problem of not being able to publish your entry remains.

Don't get me wrong, Realspawn, I know your for quite some time here in the forums and I think you're a nice guy. But using copyrighted material was not ok. JustSid is just right about the points he made in his posts. Sometimes he is a bit direct. You can easily get that wrong.