Wolfoo studio. — Photo courtesy of the firm

HÀ NỘI — In the case of the copyright dispute between two animators of Wolfoo and Peppa Pig in the Russian Federation, the Moscow City Court recently issued a decision to order Entertainment One UK Limited (eOne or EO – Peppa Pig’s owner) to compensate Sconnect Vietnam (Wolfoo’s owner) RUB240,000 (US$3,541).

The judge of the Moscow City Court (Russian Federation) issued a ruling to partially accept Sconnect Vietnam’s request for the collection of legal fees in civil case No 3-473/2022. Specifically, the Court will collect from the plaintiff EO and return to defendant Sconnect an amount that they had to pay to participate in the event filed by EO with the Moscow Court in January 2022.

This copyright dispute case between EO and Sconnect took place in November 2021, when EO repeatedly copyrighted Wolfoo videos on YouTube. On January 11, 2022, EO filed a lawsuit against Sconnect at the Moscow Court (Russian Federation) alleging the Wolfoo character set is a remake of the Peppa Pig character set and derivative works were illegally posted and disseminated on the Internet - ie Wolfoo animated videos.

EO also asked the court to protect the exclusive right of the Peppa Pig animation character sets in the form of an injunction against the creation of technical conditions, support for illegal execution, illegal distribution and use the characters of Peppa Pig (including characters Peppa Pig, George Pig, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig) in the form of remade characters Wolfoo, Lucy, Miss Wolf, and Mister Wolf, in two videos posted on YouTube.

On June 14, 2022, the Russian Council of Cultural and Artistic Experts, after a comparative analysis of the Wolfoo character sets and Peppa Pig character sets came to a conclusion that states: “The Wolfoo character set is entirely an independent creation and not a remake, derivative version of Peppa Pig character set”. This result affirmed that Wolfoo is an independent intellectual property product in terms of both scientific and technical creativity and legal value.

After the conclusion of the council, on July 7, 2022, EO filed to withdraw all requests to sue in Russia. On the same day, the Moscow Court issued a decision to terminate the case, and also stated that all parties including EO “are not allowed to claim, sue that Wolfoo is a remake of Peppa Pig”.

After EO withdrew its lawsuit, in August 2022, Sconnect filed a counter-suit against EO in the Moscow Court asking EO to compensate for the losses caused by EO as a result of the lawsuit. The Moscow Court heard for three sessions, then ruled to partially accept Sconnect’s requests and ordered EO to pay RUB240,000 to the Russian Court to compensate Wolfoo’s “father”.

Currently, the “fathers” of two world-famous animation characters are suing each other in the courts of the UK and Việt Nam. Specifically, on January 24, 2022, EO filed a lawsuit against Sconnect Vietnam to the High Court in London alleging that Sconnect infringed copyright.

On August 19, 2022, Sconnect filed an application to initiate EO to the Hà Nội People’s Court. Sconnect accused EO of illegally using the Wolfoo trademark in Peppa Pig videos; at the same time, requesting the Court to consider the ruling forcing EO to stop the acts of trademark infringement, correct information, and publicly apologise.

On September 14, 2022, Sconnect continued to file a lawsuit against EO to the Hà Nội People’s Court for the second case. Sconnect sued EO for copyright infringement on animated movies, Wolfoo applied artworks; requested EO to stop the infringement and compensate for the damage. — VNS