NYT and Tribune sue Perplexity AI for ‘large-scale’ content theft

The New York Times (NYT) and Chicago Tribune have filed lawsuits against Perplexity AI, accusing the AI startup of copying and distributing their copyrighted content without permission to power its generative AI systems.

In what is setting up to be the latest high-stakes showdown between legacy journalism and artificial intelligence technology, The New York Times has accused Perplexity of engaging in large-scale unlawful copying that threatens both its business model and its journalistic mission.

The Chicago Tribune’s lawsuit also accuses Perplexity of unlawfully profiting from its content while building its AI-driven search engine.

The newspaper contends that Perplexity’s platforms provide answers using fully reproduced Tribune reporting, effectively bypassing the need for users to visit the newspaper’s website and negatively impacting their subscription and advertising revenue streams.

News sites challenge Perplexity’s AI technology

The Tribune’s lawsuit claims that Perplexity is utilizing Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) technology, which allows the system to gather information from websites and databases in real-time to formulate responses to bypass paywalls and provide detailed summaries of protected content and deliver the news platform’s content verbatim.

Perplexity’s head of communication, Jesse Dwyer, defended the company’s practices in a statement to The New York Times, stating that publishers have been suing new technology companies for a century, from radio and television to the internet and social media.

“Fortunately, it’s never worked, or we’d all be talking about this by telegraph,” he added. The company maintains that it operates within established legal frameworks governing how information is organized and accessed online.

The AI copyrights frontier is expanding

More than 40 current court cases exist between AI companies and copyright holders in the United States. In October, Dow Jones and the New York Post sued Perplexity for similar violations, while Reddit filed a suit accusing the startup of unlawfully scraping user data.

Japanese publishers Nikkei and Asahi Shimbun, along with Encyclopedia Britannica, have also taken legal action against the same AI startup.

In Italy, two media firms, RTI and Medusa Film, owned by the Berlusconi family, sued Perplexity in Rome, accusing the company of using their copyrighted films and TV programs to train AI models without receiving permission to do so.

Publishers say that AI-generated summaries threaten their business models by diverting traffic from their websites, reducing advertising opportunities, and undermining paid subscription services.

Meta sidesteps litigation

Perplexity faces increasing litigation; however, it is not the only one in the AI space that has been hit with lawsuits. OpenAI, Claude’s Anthropic, and others also have cases with publishers.

However, Meta has demonstrated an alternative path forward with its most recent move.

The Facebook parent company announced multiple commercial AI data agreements with news publishers, including USA Today, CNN, Fox News, The Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, and Le Monde.

These arrangements allow Meta to provide real-time news through its AI chatbot while properly attributing content and linking to original articles, though financial terms remain undisclosed.

The publishers are seeking court orders to stop Perplexity from using their content, destruction of databases containing copyrighted work, and monetary damages for alleged harm.

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