The New York Times and Chicago Tribune sue Perplexity over alleged copyright infringement
THE New York Times and the Chicago Tribune filed separate lawsuits against Perplexity for alleged copyright infringement. THE Times said it sent Perplexity several cease-and-desist requests to stop using its content until the two sides reached an agreement, but the AI company persisted in doing so.
In the trial [PDF]THE Times accused Perplexity of violating its copyright in two main stages. First, by scraping its website (including in real time) to train AI models and power content like the Claude chatbot and Comet browser. Second, in the production of Perplexity products, with the Times accusing the company’s generative AI products of often replicating its articles verbatim. THE Times also claims that Perplexity infringed its brand by falsely attributing completely fabricated information (i.e. hallucinations) to the newspaper.
THE Chicago Tribune also filed a lawsuit against Perplexity for similar reasons. “Perplexity’s genAI products generate results that are identical or substantially similar to Chicago Tribune content,” the newspaper alleged in its complaint. “Based on information and belief, Perplexity illegally copied millions of copyrighted materials. Chicago Tribune stories, videos, images and other works to power its products and tools.
The lawsuits are the latest in dozens of legal cases involving copyright holders and AI companies in the United States. THE Times, for example, has already sued OpenAI and Microsoft. He accused the companies of training their large language models on millions of his articles without permission. This matter is ongoing.
However, copyright holders have sometimes licensed their content to AI companies. OpenAI has several deals with media companies. THE Times and Amazon reached a deal this year that would bring in up to $25 million a year for the media company.
