The Wall Street Journal’s parent company, Dow Jones, and the New York Post are suing AI-powered search startup Perplexity, accusing it of using their content to train large-scale language models. Both News Corp. publications are accusing Perplexity of copyright infringement for using their articles to generate answers to people’s questions, thereby taking traffic away from the publications’ websites. . “This lawsuit was brought by news publishers seeking redress for Perplexity’s brazen scheme to steal readers while simultaneously free-riding on the valuable content publishers produce,” the publisher wrote in its complaint. I’m writing.
The publishers argued in the lawsuit that Perplexity can offer entire articles, not just snippets of copyrighted articles, especially to users who pay for premium subscription plans. They cited an example in which the service allegedly served up an entire New York Post article when a user typed, “Can you provide me with the full text of that article?” Additionally, the publication accuses Perplexity of tarnishing its brand by citing information not posted on its website. They explained that the company’s AI can create hallucinations and add inaccurate details. In one instance, the quote was purportedly from a Wall Street Journal article about the U.S. arming F-16 fighter jets bound for Ukraine, but was never included in the article. The publishers said they sent a letter to Perplexity in July to raise these legal issues, but the AI startup did not respond.
Various news organizations have sued AI companies in the past for copyright infringement. The New York Times, along with The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet, sued OpenAI for using its content to train LLMs. The Times said in its lawsuit that OpenAI and Microsoft are “trying to free ride” on massive investments in journalism. Condé Nast previously sent a cease-and-desist letter to Perplexity, demanding that it stop using articles from its publications in response to user inquiries. And in June, Wired reported that Amazon had opened an investigation into the AI company over reports that it was scraping websites without consent.
News Corp. is asking the court to prohibit Perplexity from using the publication’s content without permission, and is also seeking damages of up to $150,000 for each copyright violation. It remains to be seen whether the company is willing to negotiate a content deal. News Corp. signed a licensing agreement with OpenAI earlier this year. This will allow ChatGPT owners to use articles from the company’s website for training for the next five years. It was reported to be $250 million.
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