On November 18, 2023, Sconnect once again sent a document to the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST), the National Competition Commission (NCC), Vietnam Digital Media Association and Vietnam Journalists Association, reporting the latest happenings related to the copyright between the two sets of cartoon characters Wolfoo and Peppa Pig, which Sconnect and a business in the UK have been suing each other over in the courts in Russia, the UK and Vietnam.

According to Sconnect, in early November 2023, eOne made a copyright claim on the sound ‘Hurray’ which has the duration of 0.1 second, being used in the content of a 3D Wolfoo animated film.

The 3D Wolfoo version is a separate creative product, which has no relation with the images and sounds under the dispute which appear in Sconnect’s 2D Wolfoo.

This is not the first time that eOne has made copyright claims against products unrelated to the dispute case between Wolfoo and Peppa Pig animated characters.

In late 2022, eOne made copyright claim against Wolfoo Game computer program products on App Store, though Wolfoo Game is not a subject of dispute in the lawsuit brought by eOne to the UK High Court.

After Sconnect sent legal records proving its legal ownership of Wolfoo Game computer program to App Store’s legal division, the platform rejected the eOne’s claim.

In the dispute which has lasted two years, the court in Russia released judgment in July 2022 which said there is no evidence of Wolfoo infringing the copyright of Peppa Pig.

Meanwhile, the dispute case has been handled by courts in Vietnam and the UK, but has not gone to trial, so there has been no judgment that Sconnect violated intellectual property rights, and that images in Wolfoo animated film were copied from Peppa Pig film.

In the dossier filed at the court in the UK, eOne only makes complaints about 91 Wolfoo videos, but it has used the lawsuit petition to commit a copyright strike on Sconnect’s products, resulting in YouTube’s removal of 3,500 Wolfoo videos (most of the videos are not related to the lawsuit).

“eOne has abused the intellectual property right to commit copyright strike on thousands of Wolfoo’s videos which are not within the sphere of the lawsuit in the UK. This has caused big losses to Sconnect, estimated at over $10 million, because of the removal of 3,500 videos with unjustified reason,” Sconnect representative said.

In the lawsuit at the UK High Court, eOne accused Sconnect of breaching copyright in 91 videos. eOne said that Wolfoo characters copied the idea of Peppa Pig characters; used Peppa Pig images for Wolfoo videos; used sounds copied from Peppa Pig in Wolfoo videos; used the name ‘Peppa Pig’ in the title of Wolfoo video; and copied the background of Peppa Pig.

However, to date, eOne still has not shown any evidence which can prove that its Peppa Pig products are pirated, and it also cannot show any evidence to prove its ownership over the products during the last several years since it filed the lawsuit.

The Wolfoo videos that contain the factors that eOne accused Sconnect of have been eliminated from YouTube and no longer exist on the platform, though no final judgment has been made.

Sconnect has shown its good will by checking and removing the factors now under dispute to mitigate risks, but eOne continues to commit copyright strike on the videos with no relation to the lawsuit brought to the UK court.

Currently, the sounds being used by Sconnect in its Wolfoo videos do not have any relations with the sounds mentioned in the lawsuit in the UK.

Sconnect has kept all the original recordings, contracts and payment documents for hiring young talents to record dialogues and sounds for Wolfoo animated film.

During the dispute, eOne opposed all of Sconnect's Wolfoo trademark applications in the international market.

Sconnect said that the protests against brand registration can be quite frequent, so the protest against registration in Russia does not spell the loss of Sconnect’s copyright of Wolfoo as mentioned in some media.

In Europe, eOne protested against all the brand registration applications for Wolfoo. However, on July 28, 2023, EUIPO (the European Union Intellectual Property Office) released a decision (first time) rejecting eOne’s arguments about the protest against the brand registration.

Thai Khang