AI Startup Perplexity Accused of Illicitly Using Content From Major News Publishers

AI startup Perplexity might be in some legal trouble for “illegally copying” news content published by the New York Post and Dow Jones. In a lawsuit filed by News Corp, which owns the publishers, Perplexity allegedly used copyrighted content to answer questions for users.

According to the complaint filed in the Southern District of New York, Dow Jones and the New York Post depend on advertising and subscriptions to pay for the publishing of high-quality news stories, often under tight deadlines. However, Perplexity reportedly uses AI to quickly generate responses to users’ queries, which are based on copyrighted news, analysis, and opinion articles from the news outlets. The AI essentially reproduces the material and then acts as a replacement source of information, thereby discouraging users from visiting the publishers’ websites.

“The perplexing Perplexity has willfully copied copious amounts of copyrighted material without compensation, and shamelessly presents repurposed material as a direct substitute for the original source,” said News Corp CEO Robert Thomson, per The Verge.

Perplexity’s AI Reportedly Copied Content Without Permission

In the complaint, Dow Jones and the New York Post believe Perplexity copied a large amount of published content and added it to its database. Based on the data, Perplexity’s AI-generated responses to user queries, and some answers were identical to the content produced by the outlets. To make matters worse, the lawsuit also alleges that not only does the AI regurgitate content verbatim but then will sometimes add erroneous information to it.

In June, Tollbit, a company that helps publishers and AI developers work together, revealed AI tech companies OpenAI and Anthropic were apparently disregarding established web content scraping rules. Perplexity was also accused of scraping content from Forbes.

Should News Corp prevail in the lawsuit, Perplexity would have to stop scraping content from the named publishers as well as destroy copyrighted material. Perplexity may also be on the hook for $150,000 for each violation of copyright infringement.

Previously, News Corp warned Perplexity about its “unauthorized use” of copyrighted material. In addition, The New York Times issued a separate demand that Perplexity stop using its content.