CNN sues Perplexity over alleged AI copyright theft

• CNN has filed a lawsuit against AI company Perplexity, accusing it of unlawfully copying and distributing the network's content.
• The lawsuit states that CNN attempted to negotiate a licensing deal with Perplexity but failed to reach an agreement.
• Other major publishers have sued Perplexity, while some like Gannett and TIME have struck licensing deals with the company.

AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

CNN is suing Perplexity, accusing the AI company of unlawfully copying and distributing CNN’s content.

Thursday’s lawsuit joins a long list of legal actions by publishers like The New York Times against generative AI startups. But it is CNN’s first AI copyright action and is thought to be the first by any television network.

The lawsuits are part of a larger effort to ensure that news providers are fairly compensated in a world where chatbots and other AI tools are funneling their news to consumers at scale.

Major news companies are taking a two-track approach, filing copyright infringement suits in some cases and striking content licensing deals with AI firms in other cases.

“CNN’s lawsuit stands for the proposition that Perplexity, a company valued at tens of billions of dollars, should not be able to steal from entities that create the original content Perplexity exploits,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement. “The public rely on high quality news journalism reported by human beings to understand their world, which is frequently dangerous and expensive to produce. Commercial operators can and must pay to make use of it.”

The filing in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York indicates that CNN sought to strike a content deal with Perplexity last year but did not agree on terms.

“As a result, before and after Perplexity’s negotiations with CNN, Perplexity knew that it was not permitted to access CNN’s content or to use its trademarks or service marks,” the lawsuit states.

The network emphasized in a statement that it “actively embraces the opportunities AI creates” and has “multiple commercial partnerships, active agreements, and ongoing discussions with responsible industry players.”

One such deal, with Meta, was publicly reported last December.

The statement said CNN would prefer “sensible licensing arrangements” with operators, “but if they refuse to do that, as Perplexity has so far refused to do, they will have to pay through legal damages. There is no free option.”

News Corp, The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Encyclopedia Britannica and the Japanese media company Yomiuri Shimbun have also taken legal action against Perplexity in the past two years.

However, publishers including Gannett, TIME, Le Monde and Der Spiegel have announced deals with Perplexity during that same period.

Earlier this year, in a legal response to the Times and the Tribune, Perplexity said that the attempts “to stop this novel technology by monopolizing facts will founder on bedrock principles of intellectual property law that have consistently permitted innovative technologies like Perplexity to exist.”

Perplexity did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the suit.

Hadas Gold contributed reporting.