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The Walt Disney Co. will pay a USD 10 million fine to settle a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit alleging it allowed personal data to be collected on kids under 13, violating federal law. The FTC said Tuesday Disney violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, which requires kid-oriented apps and websites to get parents' consent before collecting personal information of children under 13. According to the complaint, Disney failed to properly label some videos that it uploaded to YouTube as Made for Kids. The mislabeling allowed Disney, through YouTube, to collect personal data from children under 13 viewing child-directed videos and use that data for targeted advertising to children, the FTC said. That's because, since the videos weren't labeled as being for kids, they included targeted advertising. Representatives for Disney did not immediately return a message for comment. Google, the parent company of YouTube, agreed to pay USD 170 million in a similar settlem
Disney and Universal have filed a copyright lawsuit against popular artificial intelligence image-generator Midjourney on Wednesday, marking the first time major Hollywood companies have enter the legal battle over generative AI. Filed in federal district court in Los Angeles, the complaint claims Midjourney pirated the libraries of the two Hollywood studios to generate and distribute "endless unauthorised copies" of their famed characters, such as Darth Vader from Star Wars and the Minions from Despicable Me. "Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism. Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing," the companies state in the complaint. The studios also claimed the San Francisco-based AI company ignored their requests to stop infringing on their copyrighted works and to take technological measures to halt such image generation. Midjourney did not .
JioStar, the joint venture created after the merger of the media business of Reliance and the India business of global media giant Walt Disney, on Friday reported revenues of Rs 10,006 crore with pre-tax earnings of Rs 774 crore. JioHotstar, which was launched after the merger of two leading OTT platforms JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar on February 14, 2025, crossed 100 million paid user milestone within five weeks, according to earnings statement from Realiance Industries. "JioHotstar served 503 million MAUs (monthly active users) in the month of Mar '25 driven by key sporting events such as ICC Champions Trophy, IPL and India's largest digital content library of greater than 320K hours," it said. JioStar's linear TV network occupied 34 per cent of the market share across TV entertainment and reached over 760 million monthly viewers across the country. Reliance Industries (RIL), the Walt Disney Company and Viacom 18 Media Private had announced the merger of their TV and digital ...
The Walt Disney Co. is tapping Morgan Stanley executive James Gorman to serve as its next chairman, beginning early next year. The entertainment giant also announced that it anticipates naming its new CEO in early 2026. Gorman will become chairman on January 2, 2025. He will succeed Mark Parker, who is leaving after serving on Disney's board for nine years. Gorman is currently chair of Disney's succession planning committee. He serves as executive chairman at Morgan Stanley, but will be stepping down from that post at the end of the year. The Disney Board has benefited tremendously from James Gorman's expertise and guidance, and we are lucky to have him as our next Chairman particularly as the Board continues to move forward with the succession process, Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement on Monday.