"The Times alleged in its filing that Perplexity engaged in "large-scale, unlawful copying and distribution" of millions of its articles to build its AI-powered "answer engine." The complaint argued that Perplexity's products directly substitute for the newspaper's own content, thereby undermining its business and devaluing its journalism. Perplexity's conduct "threatens this legacy and impedes the free press's ability to continue playing its role in supporting an informed citizenry and a healthy democracy," the Times argued."
"The complaint detailed a two-stage infringement process where the Times argued that Perplexity unlawfully used software crawlers, including "PerplexityBot" and "Perplexity-User," to scrape and copy vast amounts of content from nytimes.com. According to the filing, Perplexity intentionally ignored the Robots Exclusion Protocol (robots.txt), a standard used to manage web crawlers, and even circumvented a "hard-block" implemented by the newspaper. The Times noted that Perplexity made over 175,000 attempts to access the site in August 2025 alone."
The New York Times Company filed a complaint alleging that Perplexity AI unlawfully copied and distributed millions of articles to train and power its AI "answer engine." The complaint contends that Perplexity used automated crawlers, including identified bots, ignored robots.txt directives, and bypassed a hard-block to access nytimes.com, making over 175,000 access attempts in a single month. The Times asserts that Perplexity's GenAI outputs are verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions, summaries, or abridgements that substitute for original content, devalue journalism, harm business models, and improperly display Times trademarks alongside generated content.
Read at IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Intellectual Property Law
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