CNN is the latest media company to sue Perplexity - Engadget

CNN filed a lawsuit against Perplexity alleging unauthorized crawling, scraping, copying, and distribution of CNN content from CNN Digital Platforms and third-party platforms. The complaint alleges Perplexity reproduces verbatim copies of articles, including paywalled stories, in responses to user queries. The lawsuit also claims Perplexity’s tools incorrectly attribute hallucinated content to CNN, which CNN says violates its trademark. CNN argues that commercial operators must pay to use original journalism produced by human reporters. Other media and reference organizations have also sued Perplexity over scraping and reuse of content. Perplexity’s communications chief said facts cannot be copyrighted, and the lawsuit indicates prior negotiations between the companies about licensing content.

"The lawsuit, which was filed Thursday, claims that the AI company "unlawfully crawls, scrapes, copies, and distributes CNN's content from CNN Digital Platforms and third-party platforms." It also accuses the AI tools of reproducing "verbatim copies" of its articles, including paywalled stories, in query responses to users. Perplexity's AI tools allegedly have incorrectly attributed "hallucinated" content to CNN, which the company says in the suit violates its trademark."

""CNN's lawsuit stands for the proposition that Perplexity, a company valued at tens of billions of dollars, should not be able to steal from entities that create the original content Perplexity exploits," a CNN spokesperson said in a statement to the outlet. "The public rely on high quality news journalism reported by human beings to understand their world, which is frequently dangerous and expensive to produce. Commercial operators can and must pay to make use of it.""

"CNN is far from the first media company to sue Perplexity for scraping content without permission. The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Reddit, Merriam-Webster, Encyclopedia Britannica and have also filed lawsuits against the company. "You can't copyright facts," Perplexity's Chief Communications Officer Jesse Dwyer said in a statement to CNN."

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