The owners of the children's character Peppa Pig have won a copyright infringement case against the Vietnamese creators of a similar character named Wolfoo. A High Court judge in London ruled this week that SConnect, the company behind Wolfoo, illegally copied audio from Peppa Pig in what was described as a "prolific" and "long-standing" manner.
Mr. Justice Smith ordered that all videos featuring Wolfoo must be removed by Monday. The legal battle began in 2022 when Hasbro and Peppa Pig's creators, Astley Baker Davies Ltd., sued SConnect in London. They contended that SConnect attempted to mislead young audiences, predominantly aged two to five, into believing Wolfoo was the same character as Peppa Pig or associated with her.
While the initial focus was on the similar art styles, the plaintiffs shifted their case to the audio used in the Wolfoo videos, believing it would be easier to prove copyright infringement. The judge agreed, calling the evidence of audio copying "compelling" and noting that the infringement was "extensive, seemingly endemic at least so far as the English language Wolfoo videos are concerned."
SConnect denied the claims but acknowledged that some Wolfoo videos produced before mid-2020 utilized audio from Peppa Pig. The company asserted that an independent contractor was responsible for using the clips without their knowledge and that all infringing videos had since been removed. They also stated that animations created after mid-2020 exclusively used in-house produced voices and sounds.
The judge dismissed the defense that a third party supplied the audio, deeming it "irrelevant." He also noted that while many infringing videos were taken down, others were simply moved to different online channels. Furthermore, the claim that all new sounds were created in-house could be disproven, according to the ruling.
Clips from Peppa Pig were found in all 92 English-language Wolfoo videos that were examined, and in approximately three-quarters of the foreign-language videos. SConnect's argument that the ruling should only apply to the sampled videos was rejected by Mr. Justice Smith, who mandated the removal of all Wolfoo videos. The judge also confirmed that the ruling would apply across 166 World Trade Organization states, including the UK, EU, US, and Vietnam.
Andrew Lee, partner and head of intellectual property at law firm Brandsmiths, which represented Hasbro, described the judgment as "significant." He explained that bringing the claim in the UK allowed them to address the widespread issue of Wolfoo's scale impacting the Peppa Pig brand globally, rather than pursuing separate legal actions in every country.
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