News Corp sues AI search engine Perplexity over alleged copyright infringement

New Delhi: In a significant legal move, News Corp, the parent company of major media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, has filed a lawsuit against the AI search engine Perplexity for allegedly infringing on copyrighted content. 

The lawsuit accuses Perplexity of copying news articles, analyses, and opinions on a “massive scale,” undermining the financial stability of traditional news organisations.

Perplexity is regarded as one of Silicon Valley's most promising startups, frequently mentioned as a potential challenger to Google.

According to the lawsuit, Perplexity positions itself as a platform that enables users to “skip the links” to online articles, a practice that News Corp claims diverts customers and critical revenue from copyright holders. 

The lawsuit details how Perplexity allegedly reproduces some content verbatim and can inaccurately attribute facts and analyses to News Corp's outlets. In some instances, the company is accused of citing incorrect sources or even fabricating news stories entirely.

Unlike ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude, Perplexity offers real-time answers that often feature links to source materials, enabling users to verify the information easily. Additionally, unlike traditional search engines, Perplexity displays ready-made answers directly on its webpage, eliminating the need for users to click through to external links.

News Corp asserts that it reached out to Perplexity in July regarding the unauthorizsed use of its content, but claims the company failed to respond. 

This lawsuit is part of a broader trend, as several other news organisations, including Wired and Forbes, have also accused Perplexity of scraping content without permission and bypassing paywalls.

Last week, The New York Times, which is currently engaged in its own lawsuit against OpenAI, issued a cease and desist letter to Perplexity, demanding it cease using its content. Reports indicate that Perplexity has begun paying some publishers, such as Time and Fortune, for access to their content and is expected to respond to News Corp by October 30, in line with a deadline set by the Times.

The legal landscape surrounding AI and copyright issues has intensified, with News Corp's CEO Robert Thomson expressing concerns over the impact of such practices on journalists and publishers. “Perplexity perpetrates an abuse of intellectual property that harms journalists, writers, publishers, and News Corp,” Thomson stated. He praised companies like OpenAI that have engaged in principled agreements with news outlets to compensate them for their work.

In its lawsuit, News Corp is seeking a court order to compel Perplexity to halt its unauthorized use of copyrighted material and to destroy any databases that contain News Corp’s content. The outcome of this case could have significant implications for the evolving relationship between traditional media and AI technologies.