Cosplay Sky steals cosplayer's Harley Quinn design

This is from Facebook. I will paraphrase, as I can't access it at work. Link here.

The cosplayer based the design on the Suicide Squad jacket, but for personal reasons, and because the stills released aren't high resolution, she made her own alterations making it fairly different from the screen used item and using wording not in the piece worn by Robbie. Cosplay Sky apparently endorses the cosplayer. They contacted her and asked her for information, images and wording, used in her design. She ignored it, as it seemed questionable. She then found they were selling a jacket that used her design copied word for word. The difference was they screenprinted and she did hers herself, meaning theirs is cleaner but less defined. She contacted them and they did not respond.

She posted about it, it was seen by more than 50k people, and Cosplay Sky contacted her, claiming it was a mistake and they will remove the jacket from their site.

She has no intellectual property rights to the original design, but that does not mean what Cosplay Sky chose to sell is reasonable or fair. She may also have rights due to how much she changed the design. I mention this because it was a common discussion on her post and others.

I bring it up so others will know to be careful and to possibly avoid this company, which many beginners use for their costumes. Pictures of the jackets added.

The company said they would pull the item, but it is now for sale through several other stores on Ebay, likely all the same company, and Aliexpress.

well, aren't we all stealing someone else's design when we make costumes? so you can't complain when someone steals "your" design, when you took it from the movie right? if they make it lower quality, people should be able to tell. just be happy we all dont get sued for stealing DC and Marvel's work.

I would take it as a compliment. Just because there are a couple of alterations- that doesn't make it an original design. "Cosplay Sky" probably assumed the entire thing was screen accurate. This thread reminds me of when Johnny pinched Suzy in 1st grade.

iKillGiants said:

well, aren't we all stealing someone else's design when we make costumes? so you can't complain when someone steals "your" design, when you took it from the movie right? if they make it lower quality, people should be able to tell. just be happy we all dont get sued for stealing DC and Marvel's work.

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Firstly, as I specified, she made some very specific, personal, changes. It isn't screen accurate. Second, it is difficult to tell quality online, or every thread about whether a product is decent or accurate wouldn't be here or on any other cosplay and prop forum. If you sell licensed items, yes, you should be concerned. That is the issue in this situation; they asked for a person's design and stole it when they weren't answered, and sell it. The issue here is the profiting from the personal work of a cosplayer.

Its not screen accurate because there isnt a clear image of it yet to make it so. Basically it seems to be an issue with the roman numerals being personal then? 90% of people dont know how to read them anyways so whoever added them at cosplay sky likely had no idea. Just to play devils advocate, the cosplayer's jacket is not so drastic of a change that it makes it completely unique. They basically took what reference photos were out there and did their best to replicate it which is what cosplay sky in turn did. The fonts are not the same either. Adding the Puddin and Harley (which could be what is actually on the real version) isnt that unique onto itself either as it fits in with what Harley commonly called Joker. Also its not like they bought a jacket the cosplayer made and then just copied it like when people remold helmets, etc. Poor taste on their part for making it anyways? Sure, but it seems they did actually try to make it right to start with and later on by removing it. As far as rights because a few details were changed? Not likely. I couldnt make a Captain America suit and change the star on the front to and eagle and call it my own and have rights to it. I dont think it makes cosplay sky some evil group out to steal cosplayer's ideas, as reaton said, they likely thought it was screen accurate since they tend to try and make things as close as possible.

iKillGiants said:

well, aren't we all stealing someone else's design when we make costumes? so you can't complain when someone steals "your" design, when you took it from the movie right? if they make it lower quality, people should be able to tell. just be happy we all dont get sued for stealing DC and Marvel's work.

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Apparently the TPPA notes that even if you cosplay a copyrighted character, it makes you a criminal. Any reliable source on this? Not sure if asia nikkei is one.

http://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Life/Why-cosplay-fans-fear-the-TPP

I'm just going to chime in here. Looking at the screenshots, it was a violation for them to use the cosplayers design on their product. If they were just similar it would be one thing. But they are pretty much identical. It looks as if they took a screenshot of the cosplayers jacket and made it into a vector image and then screen printed from it. The lettering on the cosplay jacket is not at all accurate to the one used in the movie. You can tell the cosplayer spitballed some of it. These personal touches are duplicated exactly by the one sold by sky. To me that is wrong. Get your own designer to mock up a jacket if you want to sell it. Don't just scan an image a cosplayer worked on and then sell it as your own. At least cut the creator in on the profit. That's like someone taking a picture of a cosplayer in their costume and selling the prints without the cosplayers consent because it was a great picture. It's just wrong.