New York Times sues AI start-up Perplexity for alleged misuse of copyrighted content

The New York Times has filed a federal lawsuit against Perplexity, accusing the AI search start-up of repeatedly using its journalism without permission and even reproducing full articles in some cases. Perplexity, founded by IIT Madras alumnus Aravind Srinivas, runs an AI-powered search tool that the Times says has been relying heavily on its reporting to answer user queries.

According to the complaint filed in New York, the Times had contacted Perplexity several times over the past 18 months, warning that its content could not be used unless the company agreed to a licensing arrangement. Despite those notices, the lawsuit says Perplexity continued to pull material from Times articles and incorporate it into summaries and search responses.

The Times claims the start-up’s system retrieves information directly from news sites and databases and then produces text that competes with the original journalism content the Times argues cannot be defended as fair use. The suit alleges that Perplexity copied substantial portions of its work, including full articles, to generate answers for users.

The case is part of a growing wave of legal fights between content creators and AI companies. More than 40 copyright lawsuits against AI developers are currently active across the United States. In August 2024, Dow Jones which publishes The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post also filed a lawsuit accusing Perplexity of similar misuse of its material.

This is the Times’ second major copyright action targeting the AI industry. The publication previously sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, alleging their models were trained extensively on Times journalism without payment claims both companies have rejected.