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NY Times sues Perplexity over scraped content and false attribution

6 days ago
  • #media-lawsuits
  • #copyright-infringement
  • #AI-legal-issues
  • The New York Times sued AI search company Perplexity for copyright infringement and false attribution.
  • Perplexity allegedly scrapes and repackages NYT articles without permission, competing with the newspaper's products.
  • The Times claims Perplexity's system hallucinates information and falsely attributes it to the newspaper.
  • Editors warned Perplexity multiple times over 18 months, but no licensing agreement was reached.
  • The lawsuit seeks damages and an injunction, though no specific monetary demand was stated.
  • Perplexity, founded by ex-OpenAI researcher Aravind Srinivas, did not comment on the lawsuit.
  • This is the Times' second AI-related lawsuit; it previously sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December 2023.
  • At least 40 U.S. cases challenge generative-AI practices over copyright concerns.
  • Courts have yet to rule on fair-use questions, though some defendants have settled (e.g., Anthropic paid $1.5B).
  • The Times has licensing deals with Amazon, OpenAI, Microsoft, and European publishers for AI training.