CNN Sues Perplexity AI Over Alleged Copyright Violations

CNN has filed a lawsuit against AI startup Perplexity, accusing the company of using and sharing CNN’s news content without permission or payment. The case was filed in a New York court and is part of the growing conflict between news organisations and AI companies.

CNN claims that Perplexity’s AI search tools copied large parts of CNN articles, including stories that were behind CNN’s paid subscription wall. According to CNN, Perplexity used journalism created by reporters without agreeing to licensing deals or paying for the content.

CNN said that good journalism takes a lot of money, time, and sometimes personal risk to produce. The company argued that AI firms should pay if they want to use news content created by journalists.

The lawsuit also says that CNN tried to block Perplexity’s web crawlers from accessing its website, but the company continued collecting CNN content anyway. CNN further claimed that Perplexity’s AI could generate almost exact copies of CNN articles when users typed article headlines into the platform.

CNN is asking the court for financial compensation and also wants a permanent order to stop Perplexity from using its content illegally.

Perplexity denied the allegations. Company spokesperson Jesse Dwyer responded by saying, “You can’t copyright facts.” The startup says it only collects and summarises information from different sources.

This is not the first legal problem for Perplexity. Other companies, including The New York Times, Reddit, and Dow Jones, have also accused the AI startup of copying and scraping their content without permission.

The dispute is an example of the growing friction between media companies and AI firms since the rise of AI chatbots like ChatGPT in 2022. Many publishers worry that AI-generated summaries will reduce traffic to their news websites while still using their journalism.

Meanwhile, some media companies have opted to strike licensing deals with AI firms. Those agreements give AI companies legal permission to use news content in exchange for compensation and proper attribution.

Perplexity has been criticised in the past for its data collection methods. Reports from Wired and other outlets said the company bypassed website restrictions and scraped content from sites that tried to block AI crawlers. Perplexity denied the claims and said it follows proper protocols when scraping data.