News
Corp,
the
parent
company
of
media
outlets
like
The
Wall
Street
Journal
and
the
New
York
Post,
is
suing
the
AI
search
engine
Perplexity
for
infringing
copyrighted
content.
In
a
lawsuit
filed
on
Monday,
News
Corp
alleges
Perplexity
copies
news
articles,
analyses,
and
opinions
“on
a
massive
scale.”
Perplexity
is
an
AI
startup
that
trains
its
AI
search
models
using
content
from
around
the
web,
allowing
it
to
respond
to
user
queries
with
a
summary
of
its
sources.
As
outlined
in
the
lawsuit,
Perplexity
bills
itself
as
a
platform
that
lets
users
“skip
the
links”
to
online
articles,
which
News
Corp
alleges
drives
“customers
and
critical
revenues
away
from
those
copyright
holders.”
In
addition
to
accusing
Perplexity
of
reproducing
some
content
“verbatim,”
News
Corp
also
claims
Perplexity
can
falsely
attribute
facts
and
analysis
to
the
company’s
outlets,
“sometimes
citing
an
incorrect
source,
and
other
times
simply
inventing
and
attributing
to
Plaintiffs
fabricated
news
stories.”
The
lawsuit
claims
News
Corp
sent
a
letter
to
Perplexity
about
its
“unauthorized”
use
of
its
content
in
July,
but
Perplexity
“did
not
bother
to
respond.”
Over
the
past
several
months,
news
outlets
like
Wired
and
Forbes
have
accused
Perplexity
of
scraping
content
without
permission,
bypassing
paywalls,
and
even
plagiarizing
written
work.
Last
week,
The
New
York
Times,
which
is
also
suing
OpenAI,
sent
a
cease
and
desist
letter
to
Perplexity
asking
it
to
stop
using
its
content.
Perplexity
has
started
paying
some
publishers
for
their
content,
including
Time
and
Fortune.
News
Corp
is
asking
the
court
to
force
Perpelxity
to
stop
using
its
content
without
permission
and
to
destroy
any
database
containing
its
works.
The
Verge
reached
out
to
Perplexity
with
a
request
for
comment
but
didn’t
immediately
hear
back.
“Perplexity
perpetrates
an
abuse
of
intellectual
property
that
harms
journalists,
writers,
publishers
and
News
Corp,”
Robert
Thomson,
the
CEO
of
News
Corp,
said
in
a
statement.
“The
perplexing
Perplexity
has
willfully
copied
copious
amounts
of
copyrighted
material
without
compensation,
and
shamelessly
presents
repurposed
material
as
a
direct
substitute
for
the
original
source.”
Thomson
also
said
he
applauds
“principled”
companies
like
OpenAI,
which
has
struck
deals
with
various
outlets,
including
News
Corp,
in
exchange
for
using
their
work
to
train
AI.
Original author: Emma Roth
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