The New York Times sues Perplexity AI for unauthorised use of its content

The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against Perplexity AI for copying Times journalism to deliver it to Perplexity’s customers without permission or compensation.

In a statement The Times says it had repeatedly asked Perplexity to end its unauthorised use of its content, but Perplexity continued to unlawfully use its copyrighted material.

Graham James, a spokesperson for The New York Times, added, “As our complaint states, Perplexity uses our content to power its product through a process called retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). RAG allows Perplexity to crawl the internet and steal content from behind our paywall and deliver it to its customers in real time. That content should only be accessible to our paying subscribers.

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. We will continue to work to hold companies accountable that refuse to recognise the value of our work.”