A High Court judge in London has ruled that the Vietnamese cartoon Wolfoo illegally copied audio from Peppa Pig, ordering all Wolfoo videos to be removed from platforms including YouTube. The ruling favours Hasbro, which owns Peppa Pig's rights, in a copyright case it brought against Wolfoo's makers, SConnect, alleging the company tried to deceive young viewers into thinking Wolfoo was connected to Peppa Pig. The decision matters because Wolfoo has amassed hundreds of millions of views online, including on a YouTube channel with more than 13 million subscribers, making it a significant threat to the globally popular Peppa Pig brand.

Mr Justice Smith found the copying of short audio clips, such as Peppa and her family saying "hooray!", was "prolific", "long-standing" and "compelling", with Peppa Pig audio detected in all 92 English-language Wolfoo videos examined and around 75% of foreign-language ones. SConnect had argued only pre-mid-2020 videos were affected, via a third-party contractor, and that later ones used in-house audio, but the judge rejected this and ordered the removal of all Wolfoo videos by 16:00 BST on Monday. The ruling applies across the UK, the EU and all 166 World Trade Organisation member states, including the US and Vietnam, which Hasbro's lawyer described as a "significant judgment" allowing the brand to be protected globally via a single legal forum.