Entertainment company Hasbro, which owns Peppa Pig, secured a court victory against Vietnamese animation studio SConnect over copyright infringement allegations involving the character Wolfoo. A High Court judge in London ruled that all videos featuring Wolfoo must be removed from online platforms before 16:00 BST on Monday, following the discovery that the cartoon had incorporated audio clips from Peppa Pig without authorization.
The legal dispute centered on Wolfoo’s use of brief audio segments featuring Peppa Pig characters saying phrases such as “hooray!” The judge characterized the copying as “prolific” and “long-standing,” noting that sound clips from Peppa Pig appeared in all 92 English-language Wolfoo videos examined and approximately 75% of foreign-language versions. Hasbro and Astley Baker Davies Ltd, which created Peppa Pig, initiated legal proceedings in London in 2022, asserting that SConnect had attempted to mislead young viewers aged between two and five years old into believing Wolfoo was the same character as Peppa Pig or connected to the property.
SConnect contested the copyright infringement allegations but acknowledged that certain Wolfoo videos produced before mid-2020 contained Peppa Pig audio because an external contractor had incorporated the clips without authorization. The company stated that infringing content was subsequently removed and that all Wolfoo animations created after mid-2020 utilized only in-house developed voices and sounds. However, the judge determined these arguments insufficient, finding that while some videos were deleted, others were transferred to different channels, and that claims regarding exclusive use of newly recorded audio could be disproven.
The court ordered the removal directive to apply across the United Kingdom, European Union, and all 166 World Trade Organisation member states, including the USA and Vietnam. An intellectual property attorney representing Hasbro characterized the ruling as significant, noting that Peppa Pig’s widespread global presence made the scale of Wolfoo’s online viewership a substantial concern for the brand. The legal strategy of bringing the case in UK courts, despite SConnect’s Vietnam-based operations, allowed the court to extend the ruling across multiple jurisdictions rather than requiring separate actions in individual countries.
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