Okay, first, let me state my situation. I was hired on the pretense that I'm going to make game assets for mobile apps (creating characters, loading screens, icons, animation---whatever was needed). I have been doing these types of mobile game jobs and so I know that some people only need to remake or add things to their game or some want a total overhaul (a reskin). Come 1st day at work, I was already given the task to make several assets based on famous game titles. So I thought, "Oh maybe they're wanting the icon to look like X or the art style should be Y". I was wrong. I was asked to basically STEAL images of that famous game, use the images in the assets, do some editing and BOOM a 'new' app. It doesn't end there. After a few more weeks of working I finally figured out what my client was actually doing: use free information off the internet about a certain game (basically copy+paste information found on Wiki sites and stuff), use the images I made to market the app and make money out of the 'reference' app--- all without even a tiny bit of consideration about possible copyright infringement. My question now is: 1)Is this business practice acceptable? Because as a professional graphic designer, I feel like it is very unethical to just download copyrighted material from Google Images (this was a clear instruction in their company guidelines) and use that to make graphics for the apps being produced. 2) Now that I have figured out how their business is done, I feel like I don't want to be a part of it because it's not aligned with my personal/professional ethics. I just want to quit and I mean drop them like a bad habit. I haven't worked for them yet this week and I'm expected to put in 20 hours a week. I can't bring myself to do what they ask. 3) In lieu of number 2, I'm also worried that I'll be given negative feedback because I don't agree with their practice etc. and all that or oDesk will just suspend my account or whatever weird things oDesk does because I made the client upset. I hope someone would help me on this. What would you do if you were in my situation? I would love to hear opinion from other people before I make a decision.
