YouTube asked to restore more than 3,000 videos that were deleted without basis

Recently, the owner of the Wolfoo cartoon character series, Sconnect Vietnam, sent a report to Vietnamese authorities to continue to support discussions with YouTube about stopping receiving unfounded copyright requests from the owner of the Peppa Pig cartoon character, and at the same time requesting YouTube to restore more than 3,000 Wolfoo cartoon videos that were removed from the platform.

Wolfoo animation is created by a team of Vietnamese artists, writers and technicians.

The four agencies receiving the report include: the Copyright Office (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism), the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information (Ministry of Information and Communications), the National Competition Commission, and the Vietnam Digital Communications Association (VDCA).

Previously, YouTube deleted many videos and blocked some Wolfoo animation channels during the process of resolving a copyright dispute between two sets of animated characters Wolfoo (owned by Sconnect Vietnam) and Peppa Pig (owned by Entertainment One UK Limited in the United Kingdom - abbreviated as eOne or EO) since early 2022.

The two sides have been suing each other in courts in Russia, the UK and Vietnam. In June 2022, the Russian Council of Cultural and Artistic Experts, after analyzing and comparing the Wolfoo character set and the Peppa Pig character set, concluded: "The Wolfoo character set is a completely independent creation and is not a remake or derivative of the Peppa Pig character set."

At the end of 2022, the Moscow City Court (Russian Federation) heard the lawsuit against Sconnect Vietnam against EO and issued a judgment accepting part of Sconnect Vietnam's claims, ordering EO to pay 240,000 rubles to compensate the owner of the Wolfoo cartoon character set.

However, EO still uses YouTube's copyright tool to disadvantage Sconnect Vietnam, causing many old videos to be deleted and new videos to not be able to be posted.

To protect Wolfoo animation - a digital content product "Make in Vietnam" reaching 2 billion views/month and popular on global digital platforms in 17 languages, in September 2022, Sconnect Vietnam filed a complaint to the Ministry of Information and Communications; Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism; Ministry of Industry and Trade; Ministry of Science and Technology and Vietnam Digital Communications Association (VDCA) requesting that the authorities consider and support the protection of Sconnect's rights and legitimate interests in the digital environment, specifically on the YouTube platform.

The Wolfoo cartoon characters are loved by children in many countries. (Photo: Internet)

In early 2023, with the voice of Vietnamese authorities, YouTube restored some locked videos, opening up posting rights for 19 blocked channels on the platform, this move brought positive changes.

However, by April 2023, while the Courts handling the legal copyright dispute lawsuit had not yet issued a final judgment, EO continued to abuse intellectual property rights, reporting copyright infringement on YouTube with Wolfoo videos.

Notably, Google/Youtube has received and continued to block the posting rights of many YouTube channels and delete Wolfoo videos that were previously opened by YouTube. These are violations of the provisions of Decree 17/2023/ND-CP, detailing a number of articles and measures to enforce the Law on Intellectual Property and Copyright, and Related Rights (accordingly, Google/Youtube can only delete/remove Sconnect Vietnam's Wolfoo videos when there is a valid judgment or decision of the Court).

According to Sconnect Vietnam's report, EO has reported copyrights for many of Sconnect's Wolfoo videos on the grounds that Sconnect used background images from Peppa Pig videos in Wolfoo videos. Although EO did not provide clear evidence of which specific content/images of Peppa Pig videos were violated by Wolfoo videos, YouTube still removed/deleted more than 3,000 Wolfoo videos from the platform, causing particularly serious damage to Sconnect.

According to statistics from the SocialBlade system, the Wolfoo Family channel alone lost about 2.4 billion views after the video was deleted in May.

In July 2023, EO reported copyrights to 18 Wolfoo videos on the grounds that Sconnect was using audio from Peppa Pig videos. The copyrighted audio videos only accounted for 1 second/video, with exclamation sounds in the characters' stories, specifically the sounds: "Hurray", "oh", "laughter", "wow", "huh", "hmm".

Representative of Sconnect Vietnam, Lawyer Pham Van Anh - Head of Legal Department affirmed: “The scenes and contexts in the Wolfoo video were all created by Sconnect staff. The sounds were recorded directly from Vietnamese voice actors. These images and sounds were created based on creative materials and principles according to the provisions of Vietnamese law. Therefore, EO's report of copyright infringement of scenes, contexts, sounds and YouTube's acceptance of EO's reports to delete/remove Sconnect's Wolfoo video are baseless and illegal."

According to Lawyer Van Anh, the sounds used by the characters in the above video are exclamations that are easily encountered in everyday conversations and are commonly used globally. The words that create these sounds are not important components to create the content of the work, are not owned by any entity and are not subject to intellectual property protection.

After discovering the problem, Sconnect Vietnam tried to send information requesting YouTube to properly implement the platform's policies and comply with Vietnamese law in Decree 17/2023/ND-CP, but so far there has been no response and the number of deleted videos continues to increase.

The incident is receiving attention from the business community and individuals in the field of digital content creation, a specific profession that has not appeared for long but has had rapid development in Vietnam in recent times.

Wolfoo is the first Vietnamese cartoon character set to have its own themed playground with many educational and entertaining activities. (Photo: Sconnect Vietnam)

On August 1, speaking with a reporter from Nhan Dan Newspaper, Director of the Digital Copyright Center under the Vietnam Digital Communications Association (VDCA) Hoang Dinh Chung said: "When operating in the field of digital content creation in Vietnam, domestic and foreign units need to conduct fair competition and comply with the provisions of Decree 17/2023/ND-CP dated April 26, 2023 of the Government detailing a number of articles and measures to implement the Law on Intellectual Property on Copyright and related rights".

Mr. Chung added that, through the content of the report and recommendations, VDCA found that Sconnect Vietnam had followed the correct procedure for providing a notice requesting objection to the temporary removal or blocking of access to digital information content with supporting documents and evidence. The removal/deletion of more than 3,000 Wolfoo video content from the Youtube platform based solely on the copyright infringement report that EO is implementing is not in accordance with the current Vietnamese legal procedures, based on Article 114 of Decree 17/2023/ND-CP.

"YouTube as well as other intermediary service providers need to thoroughly and objectively review the documents and comply with current Vietnamese laws to avoid causing damage to Vietnamese businesses while waiting for the court's decision on the lawsuits filed by the parties," said Mr. Chung.

The representative of the Vietnam Digital Communications Association also emphasized that this unit is ready to accompany and support when requested by relevant State management agencies, to protect the legitimate rights of Vietnamese enterprises and contribute to promoting the development of the Vietnamese digital content industry in the international market.

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