Why New York Times has sued AI start-up Perplexity
Why New York Times has sued AI start-up Perplexity
The New York Times has sued AI search start-up Perplexity for copyright infringement. This is the second lawsuit against an AI company by The Times.
The lawsuit alleges that Perplexity offers commercial products to its users that replace the outlet's services without permission or compensation.
The move comes as part of a broader strategy by publishers to negotiate content licensing deals with AI firms.
Perplexity's response to compensation demands
In response to compensation demands, Perplexity launched a Publishers's Program last year.
The initiative offers participating outlets such as Gannett, TIME, Fortune and the Los Angeles Times a share of ad revenue.
In August, the company also introduced Comet Plus, giving 80% of its $5 monthly fee to participating publishers.
Recently, it signed a multi-year licensing agreement with Getty Images.
NYT's concerns over Perplexity's AI products
The lawsuit also highlights concerns over Perplexity's method of answering user queries.
The firm uses information from websites and databases to generate responses through its retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) products, including the chatbots and Comet browser AI assistant.
The suit claims these responses are often verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions, summaries, or abridgments of original content such as NYT's copyrighted works.
NYT's search engine and brand damage
The lawsuit alleges that Perplexity's search engine has generated false information and misattributed it to The Times, damaging its brand.
Graham James, a spokesperson for The Times, said they, "firmly object to Perplexity's unlicensed use of our content."
He added that they will continue to hold companies accountable that don't recognize the value of their work.
Perplexity's response to the lawsuit
Responding to the lawsuit, Jesse Dwyer, Perplexity's head of communications, said publishers have been suing new tech companies for a hundred years.
He added that it has never worked in the past and implied that this case would be no different.
The company also noted that The Times had sent a cease-and-desist letter last year asking it to stop using its content for summaries and other outputs.
NYT's previous legal battles with AI firms
This isn't NYT's first legal battle with an AI firm.
The outlet is also suing OpenAI and its backer Microsoft for training their AI systems with millions of its articles without compensation.
OpenAI has defended its actions by claiming that using publicly available data for AI training falls under "fair use."
A similar lawsuit against Anthropic could set a precedent for fair use in future AI training cases.