Peppa Pig Owners Take Wolfoo YouTube Channel to Court
eOne, the owners of Peppa Pig, have filed a lawsuit against Vietnamese-owned animation studio SConnect. Details of the filing have not yet been made public, but according to Variety who broke the story, the case is listed under intellectual property and is said to be related to "passing off and trademarks". The filing, which was made in London's High Court, is against SConnect Ltd, SConnect Media LLC, SCN Media Limited and Manh Hoang Ta, a Vietnamese businessman registered as SCN Media Ltd.'s sole director in the United Kingdom. Entertainment One U.K. Limited and Astley Baker Davies Limited, the animation studio that created Peppa Pig, are listed as claimants.
SConnect runs several YouTube channels aimed at young children. Included in their offerings are the stop-motion animation WOA Luka, traditional 2D animation Max's Puppy Dog, and Wolfoo, a cartoon about a wolf and his anthropomorphic friends. Wolfoo in particular has notably drawn comparisons to Peppa Pig, specifically in terms of format and characters.
Peppa Pig is a British preschool animated series that is directed and produced by Astley Baker Davies in association with Entertainment One, Nick Jr.; Channel 5 and Hasbro's Allspark Animation. The series is broadcast in over 40 languages and is available in more than 180 territories worldwide. In 2020, Hasbro acquired Entertainment One for $3.8 million, giving Hasbro ownership rights to Peppa Pig, as well as other popular Entertainment One brands, including PJ Masks and Ricky Zoom. Peppa Pig was renewed in 2021 through 2027, which will include another 104 episodes of the popular series. At that time, it was announced that Animation studio Astley Baker Davies, made up of show creators Neville Astley, Mark Baker, and Phil Davies, would be handing the show over to UK animation studio Karrot and stepping away from the series they created back in 2004.
"We decided that now is time for us to give ourselves the space to work on other projects without the day-to-day of producing Peppa," Astley, Baker, and Davies said at the time. "Peppa Pig has been a huge part of our lives. It's a source of great pride that it's given joy to so many children for so many years. Peppa will always be close to our hearts and we couldn't be more pleased to be passing the torch to the extraordinarily talented team of artists at Karrot."
As for the current legal filing, this isn't the first time that eOne has sued over Peppa Pig. In 2019 the company sued several individuals over counterfeit merchandise both in the United States and in China.