“Peppa Pig” owners eOne have filed a lawsuit against animation studio SConnect.
Vietnamese-owned Sconnect run a number of YouTube channels aimed at young children including “Wolfoo,” about a cartoon wolf and his anthropomorphic friends, stop-motion “WOA Luka” and traditional 2D animation “Max’s Puppy Dog.”
“Wolfoo” boasts three verified YouTube channels, one with 10.9 million subscribers, one with 10.4 million subscribers and another with 4.89 million subscribers. Meanwhile, “WOA Luka” has 5.3 million subscribers on the video-sharing platform and “Max’s Puppy Dog” has 1.39 million.
The filing was made in London’s High Court against Sconnect Ltd, Sconnect Media LLC, SCN Media Limited and Manh Hoang Ta, a Vietnamese businessman who is registered as SCN Media Ltd’s sole director in the U.K.
The claimants are Entertainment One U.K. Limited and Astley Baker Davies Limited, the animation studio responsible for creating “Peppa Pig,” which counts Prime Minister Boris Johnson among its fans.
The case is listed under intellectual property and is related to “passing off and trade marks.”
Although details of the filing have not yet been made public, “Wolfoo” has drawn comparisons to “Peppa Pig” online both in terms of its format and some of its characters.
eOne, which was bought in 2019 by toy company Hasbro, has previously gone to court to protect the cash cow that is their animated pig. In 2019 they sued a number of individuals over counterfeit merchandise, both in China and in the U.S.
eOne declined to comment. Reps for “Wolfoo” not respond by press time.