Issue #10 : Taming the Big Bad Wolf
Welcome to OIA's first edition for 2023! 🤩
I don't know about you, but I had way too much ice-cream over the holidays. And decided to share my favourite one today (Hint: It's made from Hokkaido milk!).
Before we get hit with CNY goodies & all things red, here some of the juiciest 🌶 headlines from the last few days of 2022 & 2023:
India: The Kerala High Court has held that Google is not a passive conduit and cannot claim to be content blind to online publications (details below)
Indonesia: An Emergency Regulation has been signed to replace its controversial Jobs Creation Law
Ling Yah
P/S: Know of any interesting seminars happening in 2023? Drop us a note at editor@overheard.asia!
Peppa Pig Cries Wolf
Ah Peppa Pig.
The bane of many parents' existence & in this case, SConnect: a Vietnamese animation studio that runs a popular animated YouTube series (with 2.47 million subscribers!) called Wolfoo.
Background
Entertainment One UK (“eOne”) owns Peppa Pig 🐷 and claims that Sconnect's Wolfoo character "is a remake of the Peppa Pig character set".
Given that Peppa Pig is a $1 billion global phenomenon, it's unsurprising that eOne has come down hard.
🥓 Bacon that's been Grilled
In Russia 🇷🇺, the Russian court ruled in SConnect’s favour, who then filed a countersuit against eOne for compensation.
In Vietnam 🇻🇳, SConnect demanded that eOne stop its infringement activities and issue a public apology.
Meanwhile on YouTube itself, eOne had YouTube remove over 2,000 Wolfoo videos between August and October 2022, causing SConnect to lose ~ USD 2 million in revenue.
They were also banned from uploaded new videos, resulting in a >60% drop in monthly views. 💸💸💸
Although TikTok and Apple have thus far rejected eOne's copyright claims.
🇬🇧 Back in Good Old UK
In December 2022, a London court held that the Wolfoo series targets children in the UK and as such, England and Wales is the appropriate forum to hear the parties’ IP infringement case.
So the next battleground is set. With rumours of another suit in the US looming.
Any bets on who'll win? 😏
Forget Me Not?
You know I know we know that if anything ends up online... it's there forever.
Thanks, Google.
Background
Google was embroiled in a suit in India, where litigants wanted their details erased from Google Search and on Indian Kanoon - a legal resource website. They had been acquitted, but the unsavoury Google results remained.
✍🏻 Decision
The Kerala High Court held that Google can't claim to be intermediaries with no control over the content in its search results. In the era of Artificial Intelligence, Google could & must identify and remove content where required.
To not do so would be an infringement of the right to be forgotten, which falls under the right to privacy as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India 1950.
🖼️ Bigger Picture
Most interesting for us is seeing where India is headed.
India has been getting tough on big tech players - 2022 was replete with large fines, court cases and talks of new regulation for different online platforms under the Digital India Act.
Let's see what 2023 brings? 🤔
"Made In China"
Would you be more likely to buy something that was “Made in China” or “Made in Hong Kong”? Would this even qualify a “security issue”?
Because for the US, it does.
Background
Back in 2022, Beijing cracked down on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Washington retaliated by requiring all products from Hong Kong - a WTO member in its own right - to be relabelled from “Made in Hong Kong” to “Made in China”.
A Recent WTO Ruling
A WTO panel held that the US’s said labelling requirement was a violation of WTO rules. Specifically under Article IX:1 of the General Agreement on Goods & Tariffs (GATT), members must ensure that marking requirements don’t disadvantage firms from other WTO members.
In this instance, the WTO panel felt that the situation didn’t pose an “emergency” that would justify such an exemption.
Moreover by marking the products as “Made in China”, the US could increase its tariffs on goods even if they came from Hong Kong.
However…
The US doesn’t care & intends to ignore the WTO ruling, stating:
“Issues of national security cannot be reviewed in WTO dispute settlement, and the WTO has no authority to second-guess the ability of a WTO member to respond to what it considers a threat to its security.”
Who knew Chinese sauces & condiments could threaten national security? 😳
Spotlight - Donovan Cheah (Founder & Partner, Donovan & Ho)
⚒️ What do you do?
I head the employment and disputes practice of Donovan & Ho, the law firm I founded in 2014.
Right now I’ve been focused on setting strategies and action plans for 2023. This has involved working with the rest of the team to identify areas of focus, allocate resources and develop plans to achieve our goals for next year.
In addition to this, I’ve been occupied with having one-to-one meetings with our team members to give feedback on how they have been doing, and to work with them on their individual goals. On top of this we are still handling a full caseload of employment and disputes matters for our clients.
🏆 What is your proudest achievement?
Writing my book, “Navigating Employment Disputes in Malaysia”, and getting it published. I wrote this book during the height of the pandemic.
It was a challenging time to be working on such a big project, with so many distractions and disruptions to my usual routine. It’s a great feeling to accomplish something I have been working towards for a long time.
⌛ There are now 25 hours in a day! How do you spend your extra hour?
Catch up on some sleep!
🚀 If you weren't a lawyer, what would you do?
I think I would be a writer, a programmer, or a coder.
Writing has always been a passion of mine, and I enjoy the process of creating and sharing ideas through the written word.
I have also always been interested in technology, and have enjoyed learning about coding and programming over the years.
Little known fact:
I taught myself website programming and crafted our firm's website (which now houses 400+ articles) from scratch using HTML. The website has evolved since then but I’m happy to say that its origins have been completely home grown.
😋 Your favourite food haunt (bonus points if it's off the beaten track!)
I don’t have a usual food haunt, but if I’m grabbing breakfast before work you can usually find me at Kenny Hills Bakers or Der Backmeister, a German bakery which serves up a mean meatloaf.
Food Feature
Eating ice-cream in winter?
Sounds insane, but it's oh so good. 🤤
Having tried over 8 different ice-creams in Hokkaido... we found the Hokkaido milk ice-cream found at Kinotoya Bake to be the best. Their servings are generous (look at the height!), soft and rich. Hokkaido milk at its purest & very best.
Fun Fact: Kinotoya can be found at the New-Chitose Airport so you can make it your first stop the moment you land in Sapporo!
Details: Hokkaido Guide, Google Maps
Are you a student or young lawyer?
Want to get involved in helping to run Overheard? Meet senior practitioners? Do legal research with real world impact?
We're always looking for bright, young talent like yourself so if you're interested, give us a holler at editor@overheard.asia!
Special thanks to Overheard in Asia's sponsor:
David Grief was described as "the Law's Middleman" (Business Times, 2021). You can reach out to him at dg@davidgrief.com if you need help identifying the right lawyer, arbitrator or expert for your matters, or even if you just want to grab a drink 🍵🍺 with someone who has managed and mentored lawyers for almost 5️⃣0️⃣ years!