On Tuesday, Perplexity announced that it received a “cease and desist” notice from The New York Times, urging the startup to halt the use of its content for generative AI applications. This incident highlights the ongoing tensions between traditional media entities and AI technology firms.
According to a letter shared with Reuters, The New York Times indicated that Perplexity’s use of its content, which includes generating summaries and other outputs, infringes upon copyright laws. The newspaper chose not to provide further comments regarding the situation.
Following the launch of ChatGPT, there has been growing concern among publishers about chatbots that can navigate the internet to gather information and generate summaries for users.
In the correspondence dated October 2, The New York Times demanded that Perplexity “immediately cease and desist all current and future unauthorized access and use of The Times’s content.”
The notice also requested that Perplexity disclose details on how it is obtaining access to the publisher’s website despite efforts to block such actions.
Perplexity had previously assured media companies it would discontinue the use of “crawling” technology. However, The New York Times claimed that its content continues to be visible on Perplexity’s platform.
In response to these allegations, Perplexity clarified to Reuters that it is not engaged in data scraping for the creation of foundational models, but rather is indexing web pages and presenting factual content as citations to aid users in seeking information.
The startup is committed to responding to The New York Times by the October 30 deadline specified in the notice.
The New York Times is also involved in a legal dispute with OpenAI, having filed a lawsuit against the company last year for allegedly using millions of its articles without authorization to train its AI chatbot.
Earlier this year, Reuters reported that several AI organizations have been circumventing a web standard designed to prevent the scraping of publisher data for generative AI applications.
Perplexity has faced allegations from media outlets such as Forbes and Wired for potentially plagiarizing their content. In response, the startup has initiated a revenue-sharing program aimed at addressing some of the concerns raised by publishers.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
