‘Peppa Pig’ Owner eOne Sues Studio Behind Youtube Channel Wolfoo

Peppa Pig is going to court.

EOne, which owns the massively popular franchise, is suing Vietnamese-owned studio Sconnect, which operates several animation kids’ channels. They include Wolfoo, which stars an anthropomorphic wolf and his pals. Social media users have previously noted the similarities between Wolfoo and Peppa Pig.

There are three verified Wolfoo channels, which have more than 26 million subscribers between them. That’s about as many as the official Peppa Pig channel has. Sconnect’s portfolio of animation channels also includes WOA Luka (5.3 million subscribers) and Max’s Puppy Dog (1.4 million).

Details of the filing have not been made public, but the case is listed under intellectual property and related to “passing off and trade marks.”

The filing was made in London’s High Court against Sconnect Ltd, Sconnect Media LLC, SCN Media Limited, and Vietnamese businessman Manh Hoang Ta, who is registered as SCN Media Ltd’s sole director in the U.K. The claimants are Entertainment One (eOne) U.K. Limited and Astley Baker Davies Limited, the studio that created Peppa Pig and produced it until last year.

EOne, which was acquired by Hasbro in December 2019, has gone to court in the past over Peppa Pig. In 2019, it sued businesses in China and the U.S. over counterfeit merchandise.

Meanwhile, the booming field of Youtube animation is turning into a legal battleground, as companies move to protect their increasingly successful properties. Last year, the producers of Cocomelon, the most-subscribed animation channel on Youtube, filed a complaint against the Chinese owner of channel Super Jojo. Youtube shut the latter down, citing “multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement.”

Variety first reported the news of the Peppa Pig lawsuit.