This case concerned the well-known children’s TV cartoon Peppa Pig (Claimant) and a Vietnamese animation about a young wolf named Wolfoo (Defendant).

Background

Peppa Pig was launched in 2004 in the UK and is now one of the most successful series globally. It is available through various media channels. Wolfoo was launched in 2018 and is available on YouTube. The Claimant brought various claims before the Court,  including; trade mark and copyright infringement in the UK, trade mark and copyright infringement in the EU and copyright infringement in various other countries including India, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

Claims made

This particular article focuses on the copyright claim in certain sound recordings which was brought in the UK courts.

The Claimant alleged that the infringement was done with an aim to deceive the young Wolfoo viewership into believing that Wolfoo is the same character as Peppa Pig or related. They also claimed that Wolfoo is of inferior quality and unsuitable for the typical age group of Peppa Pig viewers.

The key part of the case concerned audio clips from Wolfoo and the claim that they had been taken from Peppa Pig. The clips relied on in the case were from the Peppa Pig videos rather than the original audio. Although these were the key part of the case, the court decided that the evidence could be based on the videos rather than the original files as the copyright issue protects the sound recording itself, not the underlying recorded sound.

The Defendants attempted to challenge the authorship of the clips, however the judge found that the relevant steps were taken to produce the recordings and therefore ownership is held by the Claimants.

The Claimants alleged that the audio from the Peppa Pig videos were being used in the Defendant’s work and therefore resulted in indirect copying. Indirect copying is where a person/company is held legally responsible for a copyright violation that someone else has committed. There were 67 instances of copying identified. The Defendants admitted that certain pre-May 2020 Wolfoo videos included copies of Peppa Pig sounds, but anything after this date contained no infringing material. The Defendants claimed that this was the result of an independent third party providing the sounds for the Defendant to use without their knowledge. It should be noted that indirect copying is no less an infringement that direct copying.

The copying was identified by a sound recording analyst who compared spectrograms and confirmed that they were copies. During this review it was also found that numerous English language audio clips had been copied into foreign language Wolfoo videos and therefore it was not just contained in the UK.

A sound recording will be protected by UK copyright protection if its author was, amongst other things, a company incorporated under UK law when the recording was made. The evidence in this case indicates that the production companies involved were all UK registered companies, and therefore they qualified for UK copyright protection.

The Defendants claimed that all infringing videos had been removed by 15 September 2023 but it was shown that although around 100 of the videos had been taken down, they had transferred the remaining 70 to different channels where they were still live.

Conclusion

It was concluded that the copying was extensive and this would be considered in more detail in the main case. The fact that the copying had been done by an associated third party made no difference as indirect copying is still considered copying under UK copyright law.

Takeaway

This case demonstrates that even when an associated third party does the copying, you are still liable for infringement through indirect copying. When anything is outsourced you should check where additional material has been obtained before putting it out to the public. As the original author you have as much responsibility as the associated third party.

This article was written by Senior Associate, Leanne Hall. If you would like to discuss this topic or something else, please get in touch at leanne.hall@wilsongunn.com or contact one of our attorneys for advice.