Hasbro Wins Landmark Peppa Pig Copyright Case Against Vietnam's Wolfoo

Hasbro has secured a sweeping copyright victory in London's High Court against SConnect, the Vietnamese studio behind the animated children's series Wolfoo, after a judge ruled that the company unlawfully copied audio from Peppa Pig. The court ordered the removal of Wolfoo videos from online platforms, including YouTube, marking one of the most significant international copyright rulings involving digital-first children's content.

The dispute began in 2022, when Hasbro and its U.K.-based animation studio, Astley Baker Davies, alleged that Wolfoo closely imitated Peppa Pig's visual style, characters and overall aesthetic in an effort to mislead young audiences. While those broader claims formed the basis of the original lawsuit, the case ultimately turned on audio evidence, with forensic spectrogram analysis providing what the court found to be compelling proof of direct copying.

In its ruling, the High Court described the infringement as "prolific," "long-standing" and "seemingly endemic." The judge found that every English-language Wolfoo video examined contained unauthorized Peppa Pig audio, ranging from brief vocalizations such as "hooray!" to thousands of sound effects. Approximately three-quarters of the foreign-language videos reviewed were also found to contain infringing material.

SConnect argued that any takedown order should be limited to the specific videos analyzed during the proceedings and apply only within individual jurisdictions. The court rejected that position, issuing a broad injunction covering the U.K., the European Union, the United States, Vietnam and all 166 member states of the World Trade Organization.

The decision could carry significant implications for the entertainment industry, underscoring how courts are increasingly willing to apply traditional copyright principles to digital-native franchises distributed across global streaming and video-sharing platforms. It also signals that sophisticated forensic analysis can play a decisive role in cross-border intellectual property disputes involving online media.