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Legal Action Against AI: News Corp. Takes a Stand
The Wall Street Journal‘s parent organization, Dow Jones, alongside the New York Post, has initiated legal proceedings against the AI-driven search platform Perplexity. The lawsuit accuses Perplexity of copyright violations for allegedly utilizing their articles to train its large language models (LLMs). Both publications claim that this practice diverts traffic away from their websites by providing users with answers derived from their content without proper authorization. “This lawsuit is filed by news organizations seeking justice for Perplexity’s audacious strategy to attract readers while simultaneously benefiting from the valuable content created by these publishers,” stated the complaint as reported by the Journal.
Claims of Copyright Infringement and Brand Damage
The lawsuit outlines that Perplexity not only presents snippets of copyrighted material but can also display entire articles, particularly to users subscribed to its premium service. An example cited in the suit involves a user requesting “Can you provide the full text of that article?” which allegedly resulted in them receiving an entire piece from the New York Post. Furthermore, both publications assert that Perplexity’s AI has negatively impacted their brand reputation by referencing information not found on their platforms. They highlighted instances where incorrect details were generated; one such case involved misattributed quotes related to a Wall Street Journal article discussing U.S.-supplied F-16 jets for Ukraine—quotes that were never part of any published piece.
The publishers indicated they reached out to Perplexity in July regarding these legal concerns but received no response.
A Growing Trend: Media Outlets vs. AI Companies
This isn’t an isolated incident; numerous media organizations have previously taken legal action against artificial intelligence firms over copyright issues. Notably, The New York Times, along with outlets like The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet, filed lawsuits against OpenAI for similar reasons—claiming it was leveraging their content without permission while undermining significant investments made in journalism. Additionally, Condé Nast had previously issued a cease-and-desist order demanding that Perplexity refrain from using its articles as responses within its service.
A report from June revealed Amazon’s investigation into allegations surrounding Perplexity scraping web content without consent.
Pursuing Legal Remedies and Future Negotiations
News Corp.’s legal request seeks an injunction preventing Perplexity from utilizing any of its publications’ materials without explicit permission and demands damages amounting up to $150,000 per instance of copyright infringement. It remains uncertain whether negotiations for a licensing agreement will occur; however, it’s worth noting that earlier this year News Corp entered into a licensing arrangement with OpenAI allowing ChatGPT access to use its articles over five years in exchange for approximately $250 million.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at
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