16/12/2022: Eye on the ball

For years, controversy has surrounded FIFA’s choice of the 2022 World Cup host. Thanks to new Qatargate revelations, scathing headlines will haunt this year’s World Cup well after the final showdown between Argentina and France this weekend.

Last Friday, allegations emerged that the Qatari government has bribed current and former members of the European Parliament and their staff to tone down criticism in the lead-up to the prestigious tournament and win other favours.
European Parliament’s Bureau met without Eva Kaili, who has been implicated in the Qatargate scandal, on 12 December. Photo: Daina Le Lardic/European Parliament

Belgian authorities have already conducted 20 raids, seized 1.5 million euros in cash and arrested four people – including Eva Kaili, now-former Vice President of the European Parliament. If corruption allegations are true, they would explain why last month Kaili praised Qatar’s progress on labour rights despite well-documented abuses.
Continue reading Transparency International – The week in corruption →

vietnambriefing.com  

December 15, 2022Posted byVietnam BriefingWritten byMark BarnesReading Time:4 minutes

Intellectual property (IP) law reform and enforcement in Vietnam has been at the center of a broad range of trade agreements the country has signed onto. But change has been slow, and enforcement has been lacking. Here’s how a spat between a cartoon wolf and a cartoon pig could change that.

The owners of the UK’s Peppa Pig, EOne, are suing Vietnam’s Sconnect, the owners of popular YouTube cartoon Wolfoo, alleging trademark and copyright infringement. More specifically, EOne is alleging Sconnect created Wolfoo to look and feel like Peppa Pig to imply the two cartoons were connected.

In its complaint, EOne claims that parts of Wolfoo’s audio have been taken directly from episodes of Peppa Pig and that images of Peppa Pig herself appear on items like clocks and watering cans in the background of Wolfoo videos.

This is currently before the courts in the UK.

But the courts have not been EOne’s only means of recourse.

YouTube, for example, took down 2,000 Wolfoo videos from August to October this year for copyright infringement at the request of EOne. This cost Sconnect US$2 million in lost revenue up to October, according to their own estimates.

In response, Sconnect has made overtures to the Vietnamese government looking for support. It has also countersued in Vietnam and has launched a lawsuit in Russia where, earlier in the year, a copyright infringement case brought by EOne was dismissed in response to sanctions imposed over the war in the Ukraine.

Continue reading Intellectual property in Vietnam: One Little Pig and a Big Bad Lawsuit →