International IP conflict: Wolfoo Vietnam v. Peppa Pig UK

On August 19, 2022, Sconnect Vietnam filed a lawsuit against Entertainment One UK Limited (EO) for copyright infringement on Sconnect’s Wolfoo cartoon to the Hanoi People’s Court of Vietnam. Not only that, the big company also filed a lawsuit to the Moscow Court in Russia, despite the tension within this country’s jurisdiction in these times.

Few notes about Sconnect Vietnam

Sconnect is a Vietnam-based enterprise with the business of producing educational and entertainment videos and cartoons on YouTube, Facebook, and Tiktok platforms in the international market.

As a young cartoon production unit, Sconnect is in the top 10 companies in terms of animation production and business on social platforms. The company is not satisfied with only the Vietnamese market, in recent times, they have expanded to multiple countries on the world stage, providing services across nationals.

Few notes about Peppa Pig UK

Entertainment One Ltd., trading as eOne, is an American-owned Canadian multinational entertainment company. Based in Toronto, Ontario, the company is primarily involved in the acquisition, distribution, and production of films and television series.

In 2007, Entertainment One acquired Montreal-based film distributor Seville Pictures and UK distributor Contender Entertainment Group – one of the largest distributors of TV content in the UK. The latter changed its name to E1 Entertainment UK Limited in 2009 and currently, operates as eOne UK.

The show Peppa Pig is a British preschool animated television series by Astley Baker Davies that first aired in 2004 which was belong to Contender Entertainment Group, then later Entertainment One and Hasbro.

On Entertainment One’s main page, it describes the character/TV show in conflict Peppa Pig as “With over 1000 licensees around the world, Peppa Pig is a top performing global preschool property that has been translated into over 40 languages and broadcast in over 180 territories. With 3 BAFTA Awards for pre-school animation and a pipeline of new episodes delivering fresh content through to 2023, the global phenomenon continues to look bright for eOne’s popular little piggy.”  

Sconnect lawsuit with Entertainment One UK

Sconnect’s lawsuit has been accepted by the Hanoi court and is in the process of investigation and review.

According to the content of the lawsuit, Sconnect accuses EO of committing an act of infringing upon the rights to their trademark under Point b, Clause 1, Article 129 of the Intellectual Property Law.

Accordingly, Sconnect Vietnam – the plaintiff asked the court of Hanoi, Vietnam to consider issuing a judgment forcing EO to stop its trademark infringement acts and publicly apologize to Sconnect in 3 international newspapers.

In the lawsuit, Sconnect said that from 2018 the company started uploading Wolfoo cartoon videos on YouTube channels. Before that, from 2014-2015, the company started to research animation products with the orientation of developing the animation production industry towards the international market, especially the USA.

In the period from 2016 – 2018, based on research results and understanding of the US market, Sconnect has created and developed many animated characters sets such as: Wolfoo Animation; Gacha animation; animated Doodles; animated Fairy Tales; cartoon Max’s Puppy Dog; Tiny animation – Clay Mixer; Luka animation… and many other animation products.

Most of these works are published on Youtube – the world’s most famous streaming platform. Because the Youtube social networking platform pays through advertising, Sconnect earns a large profit from video views.

To date, the Wolfoo subject/character along has more than 50 million subscribers through various channels owned by Sconnect, reaching a total of more than 30 billion views. Because of the large number of registered viewers, Sconnect has received 3 diamond buttons and dozens of YouTube gold and silver buttons (rewards based on subscriptions of 10 million, 1 million and 100 thousand respectively).

Wolfoo v. Peppa Pig

In August 2022, Sconnect discovered that EO claimed to be the owner of the Wolfoo cartoon character set and many Wolfoo cartoon videos on YouTube.

Then, EO used these videos as a basis to conclude that Sconnect’s original Wolfoo cartoon videos (videos posted on Sconnect’s YouTube channels) are products that infringe the intellectual property rights of cartoon videos that EO put out.

Accordingly, in November 2021, EO informed YouTube that the Wolfoo cartoon products are a remake of the Peppa Pig cartoon (of which EO is the owner). However, this allegation according to Sconnect is completely baseless.

Previously, Sconnect had filed a copyright registration application for “Wolfoo cartoon character expression” and was granted Copyright Registration Certificate No. 255/2012/QTG on January 14, 2019.

In the US, Sconnect filed its first trademark application for the trademark “Wolfoo, pictured” on March 22, 2021.

On January 6, 2021, Sconnect was granted a Copyright Certificate No. 1-422-930 for a group of unpublished works, including the image of the character Wolfoo associated with the name Wolfoo.

Up to the beginning of June 2022, Sconnect has been carrying out procedures to file an application for trademark registration “Wolfoo, picture” in the European Union (EU), Russia.

Sconnect said that EO’s behavior has resulted in a series of Sconnect’s original Wolfoo cartoon videos being removed from YouTube by YouTube’s decision, causing great damage to this business.

Not only the current videos, but the videos in production related to Wolfoo are also severely affected because Wolfoo’s channels have been hit with 3 copyright claims, and are prohibited from posting new videos, according to Youtube’s policies.

In addition to direct revenue and profit, Sconnect’s brand image was also affected, disrupting business opportunities to develop and causing the company to suffer intangible and immeasurable damages such as business opportunities, honor and reputation in the Vietnamese and international markets.

Sue to protect interests

Accordingly, Sconnect Vietnam filed a lawsuit at the same time at the People’s Court of Hanoi and the Court of Moscow (Russia), suing two businesses based in London (UK), Entertainment One UK Limited and Astley Baker Davies for illegally using trademarks, images of cartoon characters Wolfoo (the wolf cub), … infringing on their legitimate rights.

Due to copyright infringement on the Wolfoo cartoon and EO’s Wolfoo character set, Sconnect claims damages of approximately US$844,200 (equivalent to nearly 20 billion VND).

In addition, Sconnect also requested and suggested that EO cease all copyright infringements for Wolfoo cartoon characters, Wolfoo cartoons including the act of wrongly accusing Sconnect of copyright infringement of Wolfoo cartoons on YouTube, demanding YouTube and EO to restore all Wolfoo cartoon videos marked as pirated by EO on YouTube, among other requests.

Lesson through the takedown actions of Youtube

Although there is no real outcome or conclusion given by the competent authorities, Youtube has concluded based on its own investigation and on the request and evidence, one-sided argument from EO that Wolfoo committed an infringement of intellectual property rights against EO. The automatic adjudication at the request of one side of Youtube like in this case is not uncommon.

Particularly in Vietnam, many music videos and animations of famous creators have also been hit with ‘wrong’ copyright claims, although these cases are much fewer than the cases where Youtube detects the copyright violation correctly. After a period of working with Youtube and the authorities, Youtube has restored those videos, but the loss of prestige, reputation, and profit is difficult to measure and there are also no official statements or indemnify policies from Youtube regarding the wrongfully convicted channels.

The Wolfoo Vietnam v. Peppa Pig is another wake-up call to the monopoly of streaming services of Youtube internationally. In cases where there is no clear and unsubstantiated case, such as in Wolfoo v. Peppa Pig, Youtube’s one-sided action has caused billions of VND or millions of USD in damage to Sconnect.

Although YouTube’s one-sided trial has the advantage of being quick and timely, the consequences are also very clear, leading to great damage to businesses that do legitimate business, and respect the law and the intellectual property of the other businesses.

To solve this situation, Youtube needs to work with the competent authorities of each country separately to have a more suitable removal mechanism. The handling should be based on investigation results and arguments and evidence from many parties.

One possible option is to divide the copyright claims and other infringement claims into many different cases. For example, for videos with obvious signs of copyright infringement that YouTube considers to be 75% or more certain, the platform may take immediate action to protect the IP rights of the accusing party and then contact the accused party.

However, for videos that are 50-75% certain, Youtube should contact the accused party first, and listen to their arguments and opinions before making a decision. If necessary, consult competent authorities and experts from organizations and individuals who are third parties with no interests related to the case.

For videos that are 50% or less, Youtube can ask the accused and the accuser to settle with each other through court (Assuming mediation was not a viable option).

However, achieving this system is not an easy task. Youtube will need a greater, more powerful management system as well as hiring many more employees that can stand guard and respond to accusations at the earliest time possible, along with many other factors.

Therefore, making this system possible might not be down the road just yet. What we can do now is to ensure that the rights of each party related are protected, whether they are the accuser or the accused, whether they have been wrongfully convicted or not. Youtube needs to take responsible for their takedown actions with real, physical indemnify, not just a simple sorry and toss the responsibilities to the accuser like its current policy.

***Other Articles***

– You could check Required documents of filing trademark in USA here.

– You could see What needs to be done after registering a trademark in US? here.

– You could visit here to see What is use in commerce of filing trademark in USA.

– You could also check here to see Procedure of Trademark in USA.

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