Two brothers aged 10 and 8 wrote a song about Peppa Pig and how they had fallen out of love with the cartoon character. The boys recorded the track with their rock band Magicians Nephew.
The song was titled Peppa Pig and used an image of Peppa to advertise the song on iTunes. Just days after making the song available for purchase for 79p the boys received a trademark infringement notification from Entertainment One, the company that holds the licence for the Peppa Pig brand. This is estimated to be worth £650 million a year. The letter stipulated that Peppa Pig was ‘valuable property’ and the song must be removed and that the image of Peppa had been used without proper authorisation. The song has now been removed from iTunes. The boys and their father, himself a musician, had no idea of the legal implications of the song.
Intellectual Property is the value that is gained or added to a business or product from a creative process. “There are many different ways to protect Intellectual Property but all have the same aim – to allow creative thinkers to benefit financially from and to protect their inventions/creations.” says Matthew Fretten, Commercial Solicitor.
To a business, Intellectual Property is hugely important. IP laws are designed to protect business assets. The type of IP law that will be relevant to a business depends on the types of asset a business has. Some of the assets that will normally merit the protection of IP laws include business brands, photographs, books, computer software and paintings.
Our Commercial team based in Christchurch also cover Bournemouth, Poole and the New Forest. For a free initial chat, please call 01202 499255 and Matthew or a member of the team will be happy to discuss any questions that you may have.
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