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The New York Times is reported to be taking on another AI company over the alleged use of its content, but this time it’s the startup Perplexity which is backed by Jeff Bezos.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the publisher has sent Perplexity a ‘cease and desist’ notice demanding they stop accessing and using its content. WSJ says it has reviewed a copy of the letter.
The letter from the Times, which was sent through its law firm, is reported as saying the way Perplexity is using its content, including to create summaries and other output, violates its rights under copyright law.
“Perplexity and its business partners have been unjustly enriched by using, without authorization, The Times’s expressive, carefully written and researched, and edited journalism without a license,” the publisher is reported to have said.
New York Times’ letter to Perplexity continues the debate over journalism and AI
This comes after the New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI for alleged copyright infringement back in December of 2023. This was one of the first legal fights about generative AI technologies and journalism to go public.
Perplexity is a generative AI company, with their product being a ‘research and conversational search engine that answers queries using natural language predictive text.’ To find the relevant answers to questions, it searches the web and gathers information from authoritative sources like articles, websites, and journals.
It then compiles the most relevant insights into an answer which includes numbered footnotes linking to the sources.
While this startup isn’t the first to be engaged in discourse around the link between AI and journalism, it is the latest. It was in July when the company announced a revenue-sharing model for publishers.
In its announcement about the ‘Perplexity Publishers’ Program,’ the team explained that when they earn revenue from “an interaction where a publisher’s content is referenced, that publisher will also earn a share.”
At launch, the first batch of partners included TIME, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune, and WordPress.com.
Others in the industry have created and signed similar deals with publishers, like OpenAI which has a growing list of partnerships including TIME, Hearst, News Corp and several more.
Featured image: Via Ajay Suresh from New York on Flickr/Wikimedia Commons
