Wall Street Journal and NY Post Sue Perplexity AI Over Widespread Copyright Infringement
The owners of the Wall Street Journal and New York Post have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against AI company Perplexity, alleging "massive" unauthorized use of their content.
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Key allegations in the lawsuit:
- Perplexity allegedly copied hundreds of thousands of copyrighted articles without permission for its RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) database
- The company is accused of reproducing full or partial articles verbatim, including paywall-protected content
- Additional copies are allegedly made to preserve AI-generated outputs for analysis
- The platform is claimed to produce "hallucinated" content falsely attributed to the publications
The plaintiffs sent Perplexity a licensing proposal in July 2024 but received no response. The New York Times has separately issued a cease-and-desist letter to the company.
The lawsuit seeks:
- Substantial damages
- An order to stop unauthorized copying
- Destruction of databases containing protected materials
Perplexity, valued at potentially $8 billion and backed by Jeff Bezos and Nvidia, markets itself as "today's most powerful answer engine." This case could set important precedents for similar lawsuits against AI companies in the music industry and beyond.
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