The New York Times filed a lawsuit on Friday against Perplexity, an AI startup that operates an internet search engine. The suit claims the company repeatedly violated the newspaper’s copyrights. According to The New York Times, it contacted Perplexity several times over the past 18 months. The newspaper demanded that Perplexity stop using its content until the two companies reached an agreement. But Perplexity continued to use the material.
Legal Battle Grows
The suit was filed in federal court in New York. It joins more than 40 other cases around the country between copyright holders and AI companies. On Thursday, The Chicago Tribune filed a similar suit against Perplexity. Last year, Dow Jones also sued the startup over copyright claims. Dow Jones owns The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post.
This marks the second lawsuit The Times has filed against AI companies. In 2023, it sued OpenAI and Microsoft. The Times argued those companies trained their AI systems using millions of its articles without offering payment. Microsoft and OpenAI have disputed the claims.
How the AI System Works
Perplexity is a San Francisco company founded in 2022. A former OpenAI engineer and other entrepreneurs started the company. It operates a search engine powered by the same type of AI technology that runs ChatGPT.
Copyright Violations Alleged
The suit accuses Perplexity of violating copyrights in several ways. The main issue involves how the search engine retrieves information from websites. Perplexity uses that information to generate text and respond to user queries. The Times claims this is not fair use of the material.
Perplexity grabbed large chunks of the newspaper’s content, the suit states. In some cases, the startup copied entire articles. The company then provided information that directly competed with what The Times offered its readers. The lawsuit seeks to stop these practices and obtain compensation for the alleged violations.
