CNN Sues Perplexity Over Alleged Unlawful Distribution of Copyrighted Content

CNN Files Lawsuit Against Perplexity Over Unauthorized Content Use

A lawsuit has been filed by CNN in New York federal court against Perplexity, an AI search engine provider. The complaint alleges that Perplexity unlawfully copied thousands of CNN stories, videos, and images to power its products and distribute competing content.

Perplexity is accused of violating copyright laws by using CNN’s original content without permission. In response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Perplexity stated that facts cannot be copyrighted.

CNN is seeking unspecified monetary damages and a court order blocking Perplexity from continuing to violate its intellectual property rights. The news company claims that Perplexity’s actions undermine the economic incentives for original newsgathering and violate copyright protections.

This lawsuit is part of a larger trend of high-stakes cases brought by copyright owners against tech companies over alleged misuse of their work to train large language models. Several other companies, including The New York Times, Reddit, and Dow Jones, have also filed lawsuits against Perplexity.

Perplexity has faced previous legal challenges, including allegations that it infringed copyrights and unlawfully scraped data to train its technology. The company is valued at tens of billions of dollars and has partnerships with several major tech companies.

In recent months, several news firms have signed licensing deals and partnerships with Big Tech and generative AI companies to ensure access to verified sources of news while compensating publishers and linking back to original articles.

Source: Al Jazeera