Technical

Srinivasa Reddy Kandi: The New York Times Sues Perplexity for Copyright Infringement

December, 06, 2025-04:26

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The New York Times Sues Perplexity for Copyright Infringement:

The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against AI search startup Perplexity, accusing the company of copyright infringement. This marks the newspaper’s second major legal action against an AI firm and comes as other media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, also take legal action against Perplexity.

According to the suit, Perplexity “provides commercial products to its own users that substitute for” the Times’ journalism — without licensing, payment, or permission.

The lawsuit continues a broader strategy used by many publishers in recent years. While acknowledging that AI technology cannot be halted, major media organizations are leveraging litigation as a bargaining tool. Their goal: secure licensing agreements that ensure AI companies pay for the use of copyrighted material and support sustainable journalism.

Perplexity has made attempts to address industry demands for compensation. Last year, it introduced a Publishers’ Program that shares advertising revenue with partners such as Gannett, TIME, Fortune, and the Los Angeles Times. In August, the company launched Comet Plus, which distributes 80% of its $5 subscription fee to participating publishers. Perplexity also recently signed a multi-year licensing agreement with Getty Images.

Despite these initiatives, The New York Times says its concerns remain unresolved:

“While we believe in the ethical and responsible use and development of AI, we firmly object to Perplexity’s unlicensed use of our content to develop and promote their products,” said Times spokesperson Graham James. “We will continue to work to hold companies accountable that refuse to recognize the value of our work.”

Like the Tribune’s lawsuit, the Times objects to Perplexity’s method of gathering information from websites and databases to power its retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) tools — including its chatbots and the Comet browser assistant.

According to the complaint, Perplexity “repackages the original content in written responses to users,” often reproducing Times articles verbatim or in near-verbatim form, or providing summaries and abridged versions of copyrighted works without authorization.

Author: Kandi Srinivasa Reddy, Srinivasa Reddy Kandi, #KandiSrinivasaReddy, #SrinivasaReddyKandi