In the latest developments related to the IP dispute between Vietnam’s Sconnect and the UK’s Entertainment One (EO), on October 11, VDCA Chair Nguyen Minh Hong signed a document to reply to Sconnect’s request.

On September 14, 2022, Sconnect lodged a petition to VDCA, asking the association to help protect its legitimate rights and benefits, which are being infringed upon by the foreign company.

VDCA said this is a civil case, so it recommended that Sconnect initiate a lawsuit in the Hanoi People’s Court to settle the dispute at the same time with litigation activities against EO at the UK’s court.

According to VDCA, while the parties follow legal proceedings in the UK and Vietnam, the association will send a document to request intermediary service providers such as YouTube and Facebook, and other similar platforms, to thoroughly, and without bias, consider the dossier of the case, including the judgment by the Moscow Court, so as not to cause damages to the Vietnamese company, while waiting for the judgment by courts in the UK and Vietnam.

VDCA has asked YouTube to preserve the status quo before the dispute was raised, and not allow EO to conduct a copyright strike on Sconnect’s Wolfoo content, and to restore all content erased before, as well as restore the right to post new Wolfoo content on channels.

The copyright dispute between two cartoon characters – Wolfoo (owned by Vietnamese Sconnect), and Peppa Pig (owned by EO) – two famous cartoon films distributed on YouTube, still has not come to an end.

Since early 2022, because of a copyright dispute, Sconnect and EO have been suing each other in the courts in Russia, the UK and Vietnam. 

Though no court has yet concluded that Sconnect committed copyright infringement, YouTube has removed more than 1,000 videos and restricted Wolfoo’s business rights.

Sconnect CEO Ta Manh Hoang said YouTube is biased towards the British company, and Sconnect has been put at a disadvantage. 

EO exploited a loophole of the policy related to cross-border platforms to conduct unhealthy competition in the copyright dispute between Wolfoo fox and Peppa pig.

Wolfoo is a cartoon that was developed by Sconnect and distributed on YouTube in June 2018. 

There have been 2,700 episodes about the characters on content channels, attracting 50 million followers, translated into 17 languages, and distributed globally with 3 billion views each month.

As YouTube has accepted the copyright strike, Sconnect has incurred a loss of over $1 million, according to the company’s representative.

Van Anh