Jan 26, 2022

Peppa Pig" owner eOne sues studio behind Youtube channel Wolfoo

Peppa Pig is in court.

EOne, which owns the hugely popular franchise, is suing the Vietnamese-capitalized studio Sconnect, which operates several children's animation channels. These include "Wolfoo," starring an anthropomorphic wolf and his friends. Social media users have previously pointed out the similarities between Wolfoo and Peppa Pig.

Three Wolfoo channels have been identified, which have over 26 million channel subscribers. This is as many as Peppa Pig's official channel; Sconnect's portfolio of animated channels also includes WOA Luka (5.3 million) and Max's Puppy Dog (1.4 million).

Details of the application have not been disclosed, but it is classified as intellectual property and relates to "passing off and trade marks."

The action was brought in the High Court in London against Sconnect Ltd, Sconnect Media LLC, SCN Media Limited, and Manh Hoang Ta, a Vietnamese businessman registered as the sole director of SCN Media Ltd in the UK. The claimants are Entertainment One (eOne) U.K. Limited and Astley Baker Davies Limited, the studio that produced Peppa Pig and produced it until last year.

EOne, which was acquired by Hasbro in December 2019, has been in court over Peppa Pig in the past; in 2019, it sued Chinese and U.S. companies over counterfeit products.

Meanwhile, the burgeoning field of Youtube animation has turned into a legal battleground as companies move to protect their increasingly successful properties. Last year, the producers of Cocomelon, Youtube's most subscribed anime channel, sued the Chinese owners of the Super Jojo channel; Youtube shut down the latter, citing "allegations of copyright infringement by multiple third parties."

It was Variety that first reported news of the Peppa Pig lawsuit.