Photo Credit: Perplexity
After being slapped with a lawsuit from Dow Jones & Company and NYP Holdings over copyright infringement, AI search engine Perplexity has responded.
That lawsuit alleges that Perplexity owes its success to a “brazen scheme to compete for readers while simultaneously free-riding on the valuable content” produced by outlets like the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. Plaintiffs in the case said they reached out to Perplexity for a potential licensing agreement, but never received a response. Now, Perplexity is responding publicly.
Perplexity says the ‘common theme’ among lawsuits against generative AI companies is that these media companies “wish this technology didn’t exist.” “They prefer to live in a world where publicly reported facts are owned by corporations, and no one can do anything with those publicly reported facts without paying a toll,” Perplexity says.
“We believe that tools like Perplexity provide a fundamentally transformative way for people to learn facts about the world. Perplexity not only does so in a way that the law has always recognized but is essential for the sound functioning of a cultural ecosystem in which people can efficiently and effectively obtain and engage with knowledge created by others,” the statement reads.
Perplexity lists sources for the information it provides as in-line citations for every part of the provided answer. Many other AI chatbots have copied this citation presentation wholesale—providing the source of information so it can be viewed by the person seeking knowledge.
“The lawsuit reflects an adversarial posture between media and tech that is fundamentally shortsighted, unnecessary, and self-defeating,” Perplexity writes. “Perplexity is proud to have launched a first-of-its-kind revenue-sharing program with leading publishers like TIME, Fortune, and Der Spiegel, which have already signed on. And our door is always open if and when the Post and the Journal decide to work with us in good faith, just as numerous others already have.”
Perplexity calls the facts cited in the original 42-page complaint “misleading.” It says examples of the lawsuit alleging ‘regurgitated’ output mis-characterize the description of the source material. It also alleges that it did respond to News Corp. “They reached out; we responded the very same day; instead of continuing the dialogue, they filed this lawsuit,” says Perplexity. “AI-enhanced search engines are not going away.”