NYT Takes Legal Action Against Perplexity for Alleged Copying of Content

The New York Times is intensifying its legal confrontation with Perplexity, an AI startup, by initiating a lawsuit for allegedly replicating its articles and profiting from such duplications.

Filed in a federal court in New York, the lawsuit accuses Perplexity of illegally accessing and reproducing NYT's online content. This action follows numerous requests from the newspaper to cease its activities, which included cease-and-desist letters sent to Perplexity last year and as recently as July.

Similar Legal Battles

Parallel to this, the Chicago Tribune has also instituted a copyright case against Perplexity, reflecting a broader trend of news organizations defending their content against AI tools.

In another notable legal move before this, The New York Times pursued legal action against OpenAI for copyright violations in December 2023, before agreeing to a content-sharing arrangement with Amazon.

Lawsuit Details and Implications

Reports from Forbes and Wired have shed light on how Perplexity allegedly bypasses paywalls, offering AI-driven summaries and occasionally verbatim reproductions of journalistic works. The NYT argues in its lawsuit that Perplexity's operations purposefully disregard or circumvent technological measures meant to protect content, such as adhering to protocols presented in the robots.txt file.

The lawsuit outlines significant financial implications, claiming that by generating similar outputs to NYT's content, Perplexity undercuts potential reader visits and reduces purchases of the paper. Consequently, this shifts away advertising, licensing, and subscription revenues that the Times argues are rightfully theirs.

Seeking Resolution

The NYT's legal demand includes seeking restitution and a permanent court order to halt Perplexity's contested practices. At the time of reporting, Perplexity had yet to issue a formal comment on the matter.