Dec. 5 (UPI) — The New York Times has filed suit against artificial intelligence startup Perplexity for copyright infringement.
The Times said it had contacted Perplexity many times over the past 18 months asking it to stop using its intellectual property until they reached an agreement, but the company continued to use the paper’s work.
The Times isn’t the first to sue the AI company. The Chicago Tribune filed suit on Thursday, and last year Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post filed similar suits.
Perplexity launched a Publisher’s Program last year. It offers participating news outlets a share of ad revenue. Some who signed on are Gannett, Time, Fortune and The Los Angeles Times. It also launched Comet Plus, which gives 80% to participating publishers, and it made a licensing deal with Getty Images, TechCrunch reported.
“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,” Graham James, a spokesperson for The Times, said in a statement. “We will continue to work to hold companies accountable that refuse to recognize the value of our work.”
The Times has also sued OpenAI and Microsoft claiming that the companies trained their AI systems using Times articles without compensation. Open AI, maker of ChatGPT, and Microsoft dispute the claims.
On Thursday, The Times filed suit against the Pentagon over its new policy forcing reporters to sign an agreement curbing what they write or even ask about.
