Perplexity is one of Silicon Valley's hottest startups, whose AI powered search engine is often mentioned as a potential disruptor to Google.
The lawsuit in a federal court in New York accuses Perplexity of illegally copying and reproducing copyrighted content from The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post to power its AI-driven "answer engine."
Perplexity.ai is a question-answering platform known for its minimalist and conversational interface.
Unlike ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude, Perplexity's tool provides up-to-date answers that often include links to source materials, allowing users to verify information.
And unlike a classic search engine, Perplexity provides ready-made answers on its webpage making it unnecessary for users to click through to the source website.
According to the complaint, this constituted a "massive freeriding" on protected content that allowed the company to divert readers and revenue from the Wall Street Journal and New York Post.
"Unlike the business model of a traditional internet search engine, Perplexity's business model does not drive business toward content creators. To the contrary, it usurps content creators' monetization opportunities for itself," the lawsuit alleged.
Perplexity, which is backed by Amazon-billionaire Jeff Bezos and AI juggernaut Nvidia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The complaint also accused Perplexity of damaging the publishers' brands by attributing false information to their publications.
The publishers seek injunctive relief and statutory damages up to $150,000 per infringement.
The plaintiffs are also requesting the destruction of any database containing their copyrighted works.
The move follows similar allegations by The New York Times, which has sent a cease and desist letter to Perplexity, which is a first step towards a lawsuit.
In a similar case, the Times filed a lawsuit last year against OpenAI, accusing the ChatGPT-maker of stealing content to train its powerful AI with copyrighted material.
News Corp, the owner of The Wall Street Journal and the Post, has signed a content agreement with OpenAI and the suit alleged that Perplexity ignored requests to enter into such partnerships.
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