NY Post, Wall Street Journal sue Jeff Bezos-backed Perplexity AI for ripping off content
The parent companies of The Post and The Wall Street Journal have filed suit against the Jeff Bezos-backed artificial intelligence firm Perplexity AI for allegedly engaging in a “massive amount of illegal copying” of the publications’ copyrighted work.NYP Holdings, Inc.and Dow Jones, both of which are subsidiaries of News Corp, jointly filed the lawsuit against Perplexity AI in Manhattan federal court on Monday demanding that the firm cease using their news articles as the basis for answers to questions.The plaintiffs also want the court to order Perplexity to destroy any database that uses their copyrighted work.Perplexity is alleged to have amassed large quantities of copyrighted material into a database which users can access through an AI mechanism known as “retrieval-augmented generation” (RAG) in order to provide answers to users’ queries — without permission or payment.Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp, blasted Perplexity for “an abuse of intellectual property that harms journalists, writers, publishers and News Corp.”“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 said in a statement.
“Perplexity proudly states that users can ‘skip the links’ — apparently, Perplexity wants to skip the check.”Perplexity, which bills itself as “a free AI-powered answer engine that provides accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question,” was founded in 2022.The company aims to challenge Google by offering an AI-based search engine that is “part chatbot and part search engine.”Earlier this year, the company reached 10 million monthly active users.
Its most recent funding round valued the company at around $1 billion.The Journal on Sunday reported that Perplexity recently began fundraising talks in which it is looking to increase its valuation to at least ...