The New York Times has initiated legal proceedings against Perplexity AI, an AI software company, for allegedly utilizing millions of the newspaper’s articles without authorization to fuel its AI tools. The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in New York, claims that Perplexity’s operational model centers on scraping and reproducing copyrighted material, including content from subscription-based sections. According to a Reuters report, the Times further asserts that Perplexity’s AI systems have produced fictitious data, termed ‘hallucinations’, and inaccurately associated these fabrications with the newspaper by showcasing them alongside its brand markings.
In response to the situation, a Times spokesperson emphasized a commitment to the ethical advancement of AI while condemning the unauthorized utilization of its content by Perplexity for commercial gain. The newspaper is pursuing compensatory damages and legal injunctions to halt the alleged unauthorized activities.
Perplexity’s head of communication, Jesse Dwyer, brushed off the legal action, portraying it as a conventional yet ineffective strategy employed by publishers against emerging technologies, as per the report. The company has asserted its stance of not scraping data for constructing its primary models but rather indexing web pages and providing proper attributions.
This legal dispute emerges amid a wave of conflicts between publishers and AI enterprises regarding the utilization of protected content. With an estimated valuation of $20 billion, Perplexity faces similar litigations from other publishers such as the Chicago Tribune, Dow Jones, the New York Post, and Encyclopedia Britannica. Furthermore, social media giant Reddit has previously taken legal action against the company over alleged data scraping activities.