Artificial intelligence search startup Perplexity has recently signed a multi-year licensing agreement with global renowned visual content provider Getty Images, allowing it to display Getty Images' photos in its AI-driven search and discovery tools.
This major agreement marks a significant shift in Perplexity's content strategy. Previously, the company faced controversy over alleged content scraping and plagiarism, including being accused of copying Getty images used in articles from The Wall Street Journal. This collaboration is seen as an important step for Perplexity to establish more formal and compliant content partnerships to address copyright and intellectual property challenges.
Collaboration Has Been in Place, with Innovative Models
According to sources from TechCrunch, Perplexity's relationship with Getty has been ongoing for over a year. Getty Images is actually a member of Perplexity's "Publisher Program," a initiative aimed at collaborating with publishers whose content appears in search results by sharing advertising revenue.
However, today's licensing agreement is a new one. According to insiders, this is not a traditional monthly licensing model because Perplexity does not train its own foundational models, but specific terms have not been disclosed. The agreement seems to also legitimize Perplexity's previous use of Getty Images' photos in search results.
Focusing on "Attribution" and Compliance
Perplexity previously faced criticism from multiple news organizations for allegations of plagiarism, and was recently sued by Reddit in October for "massive illegal" scraping of user content. In terms of data licensing, Reddit has signed a data licensing agreement with OpenAI.
In this context, Perplexity emphasizes its focus on attribution and compliance. Perplexity stated that the collaboration with Getty will help better present images and provide links to the original sources when images appear in search results.
Nick Unsworth, Vice President of Strategic Development at Getty, said the agreement "acknowledges the importance of proper attribution and its value in enhancing artificial intelligence products."
Jessica Chan, Head of Content and Publisher Partnerships at Perplexity, emphasized: "In the age of artificial intelligence, attribution and accuracy are crucial for people to understand the world. We work together to help people find answers through powerful visual storytelling while ensuring they always know the source and creator of the content."
