3 Minutes
The New York Times has filed a formal lawsuit against AI startup Perplexity, accusing the company of reproducing and monetizing content that is "verbatim or strikingly similar" to its journalism. The legal move marks a new escalation in an ongoing clash between traditional publishers and generative AI services.
Allegations: scraping, copying and bypassing protections
According to the complaint, Perplexity has "extracted, copied and distributed" NYT content without permission. The paper says repeated warnings were ignored and that Perplexity's data-collection tools intentionally circumvented the Times' defensive measures — including robots.txt rules that specify which parts of a site can be crawled.
The Times argues this behavior violates copyright law and deprives readers of the incentive to visit the publisher's site or buy its print edition. The suit claims Perplexity's responses sometimes provide full or near-complete reproductions of articles, effectively replacing the need to access the original content.
What the New York Times wants from the court
Beyond seeking monetary damages, The New York Times asks the court for a permanent injunction to stop Perplexity from continuing the alleged conduct. The complaint frames the case as both a legal and economic dispute over how AI systems should use copyrighted news content.
Perplexity pushes back with historical context
Perplexity responded through a spokesperson, telling The Verge that litigation against technology firms is hardly new. "From radio and television to the internet, social networks and now AI," the statement says, "publishers have repeatedly targeted new tech companies with lawsuits — and those suits rarely stopped progress." The reply leaned on a broader narrative: technological shifts routinely prompt legal fights as industries adapt.
Why this case matters for publishers and AI tools
This lawsuit is part of a wave of legal challenges facing Perplexity. Investigations by Forbes and WIRED earlier this year suggested the service bypassed some paywalls and produced AI summaries — and in some cases near-full copies — of protected articles. The Chicago Tribune filed a similar suit against Perplexity shortly before the Times, underscoring that multiple news organizations are alarmed by the startup's approach.
So what's at stake? If courts side with publishers, AI companies that ingest and summarize web content may face stricter limits, licensing demands, or technical obligations to respect site-level protections like robots.txt. Alternatively, a ruling favoring Perplexity could ease restrictions on how generative models use publicly available web text.
What readers and developers should watch next
Expect this litigation to influence both product behavior and industry norms. Will AI companies adopt tougher filters and licensing deals? Will publishers demand clearer rules or new compensation models for their reporting? The answers will shape how searchable, summarizable, and monetizable news becomes in the age of AI.
As legal teams prepare briefs and evidence, the technology and media worlds will be watching closely: the outcome could set precedent on how copyrighted news content is treated by the next generation of AI tools.
Leave a Comment