In today's ExchangeWire digest: News Corp sues Perplexity, Netflix shuts down Team Blue gaming studio, and The Walt Disney Company to announce new CEO in 2026.
News Corp subsidiaries Dow Jones (The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s) and NYP Holdings (the New York Post) are suing generative AI platform Perplexity over the alleged use of its copyright material. The lawsuit alleges that Perplexity has comprehensively scraped News Corp’s publications without permission, and then presents outputs such as full article text without remuneration. According to the claim, filed in the United States District Court Southern District of New York, News Corp seeks statutory and actual damages, the destruction of any material compiled by Perplexity that has not “fully and permanently” deleted any of its copyrighted material, and up to USD$150,000 (£115,242) per each copy of Dow Jones/NY Post material, whether output or training data.
Netflix has shut down Team Blue, its internal video games studio responsible for the production of premium, multi-device (AAA) titles. First reported by Game File, the studio has closed after two years in operation, with leading hires Chacko Sonny (formerly Blizzard), Joseph Staten (formerly Bungie and 343 Industries), and Rafael Grassetti (formerly Sony) all now having departed Netflix. Though Netflix has found some success with interactive narrative titles and mobile titles based on its IP, reporting in its June earnings call that it had over 80 titles in development, it has yet to break into the AAA space.
The Walt Disney Company has stated that it will announce a new CEO in early 2026, and has appointed current Morgan Stanley executive chair James Gorman to board chair to lead the CEO search. Current CEO Bob Iger dramatically returned to the role in 2022 after the dismissal of Bob Chapek following a swathe of disappointing earnings results, largely attributed to heavily pivoting to its Disney+ streaming platform. In a statement, Gorman wrote, “This timing reflects the progress the Succession Planning Committee and the Board are making, and will allow ample time for a successful transition before the conclusion of Bob Iger’s contract in December 2026.”