The New York Times filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Southern District Court of New York, accusing AI search unicorn Perplexity of "mass, unauthorized copying and distribution" of its news, videos, podcasts, and other copyrighted content, and requested an injunction and damages. This is the second copyright lawsuit against generative AI by the Times following its 2023 lawsuit against OpenAI/Microsoft.
Image source note: The image was generated by AI, and the image licensing service is Midjourney.
Complaint Highlights: RAG Output = "Near-Verbatim News"
Scraping Scale: In August 2024 alone, it made over 175,000 visits to nytimes.com, bypassing robots.txt and "hard blocking."
Content Usage: Using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to embed entire articles or "long summaries" in responses, so "users don't need to click into the original article."
Substitute Market: The Times believes that Perplexity's AI responses "directly replace" its website and paid subscriptions, harming advertising and subscription revenue
Technical Details: Bypassing Restrictions + False Attribution
Evading Methods: Using unmentioned User-Agent, third-party crawlers, dynamic IP addresses, and is accused of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) (§1201)
Trademark Dilution: RAG once labeled "recalled products never reviewed by Wirecutter" as "Wirecutter recommended," which the Times claims constitutes "false source identification" and trademark dilution
Lawsuit Objectives: Compensation + Injunction + Jury Trial
Economic Claims: The exact amount is not disclosed, but it emphasizes that Perplexity, with a "2 billion dollar valuation and 150 million in funding," has used its content "without compensation."
Injunction Request: Prohibiting continued scraping and use of Times materials, and requiring the destruction of the copied database
Trials: Requesting a jury decision, aiming to create a "precedent deterrence"
Industry Response: Publishers Pursue "Litigation + Negotiation" Dual Tracks
Within the same week, the Chicago Tribune also filed a similar lawsuit against Perplexity; News Corp, Dow Jones, Reddit, and over 40 other media outlets have launched about 40 related cases
Negotiation Side: Perplexity has launched the Publishers’ Program (ad revenue sharing) and Comet Plus (5 dollars/month, 80% given to media), and has reached a multi-year licensing agreement with Getty Images; however, the Times is not on the collaboration list
Responses from Both Sides
A spokesperson for the Times, Graham James:
"We support the ethical development of AI, but we strongly oppose using our content without permission to promote commercial products."
Jesse Dwyer, Perplexity's Communications Director:
"Publishers have always sued new technologies: radio, television, the internet, social media, now AI. Fortunately, this has never worked, otherwise we would only be communicating by telegraph today."
Next Steps and Impact
Legal Process: Perplexity must file a response within 30 days; if the court issues a temporary injunction, its RAG index may be forced to remove Times content
Industry Example: The judgment result will affect "AI search → publisher" licensing pricing and RAG boundaries, and OpenAI, Google, and others are closely watching
Regulatory Signal: The FTC has already sought comments on "AI-generated content labeling," and this case may accelerate federal legislation
