Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster Sue AI Search Engine Perplexity for Copyright Infringement

Encyclopedia Britannica Wants Perplexity to Stop Using Its Logos When AI Makes Stuff Up

Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines the verb plagiarize as "to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own: use (another's production) without crediting the source." And that's exactly what its parent company, Encyclopedia Britannica, is alleging the AI company Perplexity did with its AI answers engine, according to a complaint filed Thursday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. AI companies like Perplexity are no strangers to copyright infringement lawsuits. OpenAI, Midjourney and others are currently fighting these kinds of legal claims in court. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.) Encyclopedia Britannica's complaint is a bit different, however. The publisher is primarily concerned with the results Perplexity's AI answers engine spits out, rather than how the underlying tech (a large language model) was trained. Don't miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source. Perplexity is also somewhat unique among AI companies. Its revenue-sharing program aims to give media companies like Encyclopedia Britannica a tiny wedge of its profit pie. At the same time, the publisher argues that the very existence of this program proves the AI company knows there's a market for human-generated content. Instead of paying for access to that copyrighted content, Perplexity allegedly takes it without permission or payment. What's also different in this complaint is that Encyclopedia Britannica specifically calls out the potential reputational harm it suffers from Perplexity's trademark infringement. When you ask Perplexity a question, the response can include a link to the original sources, along with the websites' logos. Yet AI doesn't always get everything right; it can make stuff up in errors called hallucinations. Encyclopedia Britannica doesn't want its brands' names or trademarks anywhere near the misinformation, writing in the complaint that AI-created content "confuses and deceives Perplexity users into believing (falsely) that the hallucinations are associated with, sponsored by, or approved by" the company. The publisher also alleges that Perplexity's web-scraping bot allows for the verbatim regurgitation of its content. Similar concerns exist in The New York Times' lawsuit against ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. Neither Encyclopedia Britannica nor Perplexity immediately responded to a request for comment. Copyright law offers key protections to publishers and copyright creators, and it's become one of the most controversial legal issues in AI. Typically, if a company wants to use copyright-protected material, it has to get the permission of the rights holder and license it. Tech companies are pushing for "fair use" exceptions, a legal concept that would give them permission to use protected content without negotiating with the creators. Claude-maker Anthropic and Meta recently won copyright lawsuits under the fair use exception. Anthropic's judge said the AI company's use of copyrighted material was "exceedingly transformative." But both judges cautioned that tech companies would not always win future cases.

Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster sue AI search company Perplexity

The AI web search company Perplexity is being hit by another lawsuit alleging copyright and trademark infringement, this time from Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster. Britannica, the centuries-old publisher that owns Merriam-Webster, sued Perplexity in New York federal court on September 10th. In the lawsuit, the companies allege that Perplexity's "answer engine" scrapes their websites, steals their internet traffic, and plagiarizes their copyrighted material. Britannica also alleges trademark infringement when Perplexity attaches the two companies' names to hallucinated or incomplete content. The word "plagiarize" illustrates the point of the lawsuit. The court document includes back-to-back screenshots that show Perplexity's result is identical to Merriam-Webster's definition. Perplexity positions itself as a Google Search competitor. It has been called a "bullshit machine" that steals and recreates original content without proper citations. The AI company is also accused of "stealth crawling" websites with crawler blockers, a practice used by other AI companies. Perplexity, backed by investors like Jeff Bezos, has tussled with other media outlets like Forbes, The New York Times, and the BBC. News Corp, the parent company of outlets like The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, sued Perplexity in October 2024. Some media companies joined Perplexity's ad revenue sharing program, including Time magazine and the Los Angeles Times. Another popular encyclopedia, World History Encyclopedia, joined Perplexity's publisher program, and on September 8th, it launched a Perplexity-powered AI chatbot that allows users to sift through the encyclopedia's database of sources and academic articles.

Encyclopedia Britannica sues Perplexity over AI 'answer engine'

Sept 11 (Reuters) - Perplexity AI is the latest artificial intelligence company to be hit with a lawsuit by copyright holders, accused by Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster of misusing their content in its "answer engine" for internet searches. The reference companies alleged, opens new tab in New York federal court on Wednesday that Perplexity unlawfully copied their material and diminished their revenue by redirecting their web traffic to its AI-generated summaries. Spokespeople for Perplexity and attorneys and spokespeople for Britannica, which owns Merriam-Webster, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday. The lawsuit is one of several high-stakes cases brought by authors, news outlets and other content owners against tech companies for using their material without permission in AI systems. Perplexity's "answer engine" searches the internet for users and summarizes what it finds, providing an AI-based alternative to traditional search engines like Google. The lawsuit said Perplexity's system "free rides" on Britannica and Merriam-Webster's work by summarizing their articles and diverting traffic that would otherwise go to their websites. Perplexity is facing a similar lawsuit from News Corp's (NWSA.O), opens new tab Dow Jones and the New York Post for allegedly misusing their articles in its search engine. Britannica and Merriam-Webster's complaint said Perplexity infringed their copyrights by scraping their websites, copying their articles and reproducing their content without permission. They also accused the startup of violating their trademark rights by attributing AI-hallucinated material to them. Britannica and Merriam-Webster requested an unspecified amount of monetary damages and an order blocking Perplexity from misusing their content. The case is Encyclopedia Britannica Inc v. Perplexity AI Inc, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 1:25-cv-07546. For Britannica: Ian Crosby, Davida Brook and Gloria Park of Susman Godfrey For Perplexity: attorney information not yet available Murdoch's Dow Jones, New York Post sue Perplexity AI for 'illegal' copying of content Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Litigation * Intellectual Property Blake Brittain Thomson Reuters Blake Brittain reports on intellectual property law, including patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets, for Reuters Legal. He has previously written for Bloomberg Law and Thomson Reuters Practical Law and practiced as an attorney.

Perplexity's definition of copyright gets it sued by the dictionary

Merriam-Webster and its parent company Encyclopedia Britannica are the latest to take on AI in court. The plaintiffs have sued Perplexity, claiming that AI company's "answer engine" product unlawfully copies their copyrighted materials. They are also alleging copyright infringement for instances where Perplexity's AI creates false or inaccurate hallucinations that it then wrongly attributes to Britannica or Merriam-Webster. The , filed in New York federal court, is seeking unspecified monetary damages and an order that blocks Perplexity from misusing their content. "Perplexity's so-called "answer engine" eliminates users' clicks on Plaintiffs' and other web publishers' websites -- and, in turn, starves web publishers of revenue -- by generating responses to users' queries that substitute the content from other information websites," the filing reads. "To build its substitute product, Perplexity engages in massive copying of Plaintiffs' and other web publishers' protected content without authorization or remuneration."

After Anthropic's Billion-Dollar Settlement, Dictionaries Are Suing Perplexity AI

Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster accuse the AI startup of copying their content and attributing hallucinated answers to their brands. Anthropic’s recent $1.5 billion settlement could open the floodgates for more publishers to sue AI companies over how they use copyrighted content. Just this week, the Britannica Group, the parent of Encyclopedia Britannica and the Merriam-Webster dictionary, sued Perplexity. Filed on Wednesday in a New York federal court, the complaint accuses the buzzy AI startup of infringing Britannica’s copyright and trademark rights and claims its answer engine is cutting into the publisher’s revenue. Perplexity, founded in 2022, dubs itself as an “AI-powered Swiss Army knife for information discovery and curiosity.†The company recently made headlines in August when it made a $34.5 billion bid to buy Google's Chrome browser. Perplexity is known for its answer engine, which pulls data from across the web and delivers quick, easy-to-read summaries to users’ questions. Britannica says those summaries often lift its content verbatim without permission, diverting readers who might otherwise visit its sites, traffic the company relies on for subscriptions and ad dollars. “Perplexity claims to be the â€~world’s first answer engine,’ but the answers they provide to consumers are often Britannica’s answers,†Britannica Group CEO Jorge Cauz said in a press release. This isn’t Perplexity’s first legal fight. Last year, Rupert Murdoch’s Dow Jones, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal and New York Post, accused the startup of illegally copying its work. However, this new lawsuit lands just weeks after Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle claims it used millions of pirated books to train its Claude chatbot, signaling that lawsuits from publishers could result in a big payout. Since the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude, publishers have pushed to make tech firms pay for the use of their content. AI companies depend on published and often copyrighted material like websites, newspapers, journals, and books to train their large language models and answer users' questions. OpenAI, for example, is still battling a 2023 lawsuit from The New York Times, even as it and Google have struck licensing deals with outlets such as News Corp and Reddit, respectively, to avoid more clashes. Perplexity itself announced in August that it would soon start sharing some of its revenue with publishers whose news articles are used to answer user questions. Britannica’s complaint says Perplexity scraped its sites, copied and republished articles without permission, and even attributed AI-generated hallucinated answers that could damage the brand’s reputation. Britannica argues these actions violate both copyright and trademark law. Additionally, Britannica says that it can create content thanks to the money it makes through subscriptions and advertising revenue. It accuses Perplexity's answer engine of free riding on these investments by "cannibalizing traffic" to its sites. The company is seeking unspecified monetary damages and a court order barring further use of its content. Perplexity did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo.

Merriam-Webster and Encyclopedia Britannica sue Perplexity

Add Merriam-Webster and Encyclopedia Britannica to the growing list of companies suing AI company Perplexity for allegedly misusing its content. The companies behind the well-known dictionary and encyclopedia have filed suit in New York federal court, accusing Perplexity of copying their material without permission and using it in its "answer engine." The suit claims that the system, which is being marketed as an alternative to Google and other search engines, gives users a "free ride" on the work of the companies, accessing their content "thousands" of times. (Merriam-Webster is owned by Britannica.) "Perplexity engages in massive copying of Plaintiffs' and other web publishers' protected content without authorization or remuneration," the suit reads. "Perplexity's output answers are designed to, and do, act as substitutes for users clicking on links and otherwise going to Plaintiffs' own websites. ... For example, when a user asked Perplexity, "How does Merriam Webster define plagiarize," Perplexity spit back the exact definition of the term from Merriam Webster, which is identical to the definition in the print Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary." The companies are seeking unspecified monetary damages and an order that blocks Perplexity from misusing their content. The stakes are high. Britannica says in 2024, it saw more than one billion sessions at its britannica.com site and another 1.4 billion at other sites it owns. Perplexity's "answer engine" does not funnel traffic to those sites, but rather summarizes them for the user. The Britannica suit is just one of a growing number against Perplexity (which is also trying to buy TikTok). Dow Jones (publisher of The Wall Street Journal) and the New York Post sued the AI company last October, alleging it had copied content from their publications without permission and used it in the AI search engine. Perplexity's bid to have that suit dismissed has fallen short, with a U.S. District Court judge striking down its motion in August. Last month, Japanese media companies Nikkei and the Asahi Shimbun also filed suit on claims similar to the Dow Jones/New York Post case. And the New York Times and BBC have both threatened legal action.

Perplexity hit with a lawsuit by two knowledge titans

They're accusing the AI company of 'cannibalizing' traffic to their websites, impacting revenue. Perplexity is an AI-powered search tool that excels at delivering speedy and relevant answers in a conversational tone. But it's now come up against two long-established giants of knowledge dissemination in the form of Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster, which have hit it with a lawsuit. Britannica and Merriam-Webster are accusing Perplexity of copyright infringement and trademark violation, Reuters reported on Thursday. They also claim that the San Francisco-based company has impacted their revenue by shifting web traffic away from their sites and to its own AI tool. Recommended Videos The case is the latest in a series of lawsuits targeting generative-AI companies like Perplexity and ChatGPT's OpenAI, as well as larger outfits like Google, which is also building its own AI-powered tools. While most of the lawsuit are about AI firms scraping content from the web to train their AI models without first getting permission from the copyright holders, the one targeting Perplexity is a little different as its AI tool searches the web in real time to gather data for its rapid and concise responses to users' questions, eliminating the need for the user to visit the source's website. The suit, filed this week in New York federal court, says Perplexity's AI tool "free rides" on Britannica and Merriam-Webster's content and as a result is "cannibalizing traffic" to their websites as they rely on visits to sell subscriptions and earn revenue from ads. Britannica and Merriam-Webster accuse Perplexity of infringing their copyrights by reproducing their content without permission. But that's not the only issue. AI tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT are known to sometimes respond with erroneous information in what's known as a "hallucination." Some of Perplexity's hallucinations are apparently attributed to Britannica and Webster's content, which the accusers allege is a violation of their trademarks. The pair are requesting monetary damages from Perplexity. The amount hasn't been revealed. Digital Trends has contacted Perplexity for a response to the legal action by Britannica and Merriam-Webster and we will update this article if we hear back. This isn't the first lawsuit to hit Perplexity. Media giant News Corp, for example, brought similar action in 2024, alleging copyright infringement by improperly using Dow Jones and New York Post articles in Perplexity's online tool without permission. The case is ongoing. The lawsuits against Perplexity, as well as others brought against similar companies, highlight the emerging legal challenges around generative AI, as well as the changing landscape of the internet, with publishers fearful of losing web traffic as users get the information they need from chatbots that are fueled by publishers' content. In a bid to create a fair and sustainable business model, many of the AI firms behind tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity have been seeking revenue-sharing deals with publishers. Perplexity also launched a program last month that offers to pay publishers a fee when its AI uses their content to answer questions.

Britannica and Merriam-Webster Sue Perplexity AI Over Copyright Claims | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The complaint alleges that Perplexity copied articles from Britannica and Merriam-Webster and reduced their online traffic by directing users to AI-generated summaries instead of the original sources. Per Reuters, the plaintiffs claim this practice infringes their intellectual property rights and has caused financial harm. Perplexity's platform operates by scanning the internet for information and delivering summarized responses, positioning itself as an alternative to conventional search engines like Google. Britannica and Merriam-Webster argue that this method unfairly benefits from their investment in content creation, effectively "free riding" on their work by replicating it without authorization. The companies also contend that Perplexity violated trademark protections by attributing false or AI-generated information to them, which they say risks damaging their reputation. They are seeking unspecified financial compensation as well as an injunction to prevent further use of their material. Related: Apple Explores Potential AI Deals With Mistral and Perplexity This lawsuit is part of a growing wave of legal challenges against AI developers accused of repurposing copyrighted works without permission. Per Reuters, Perplexity is already facing similar litigation from News Corp's Dow Jones unit and the New York Post. The case, filed under Encyclopedia Britannica Inc v. Perplexity AI Inc in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is being handled by attorneys Ian Crosby, Davida Brook, and Gloria Park of Susman Godfrey on behalf of Britannica. Lawyers for Perplexity have not yet been identified, and representatives for both sides did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Britannica Sues Perplexity Over Alleged AI Copyright Breach

This particular lawsuit is quite interesting, as both Britannica and Merriam-Webster create products that mostly contain facts. Copyright law generally does not protect facts but only their particular expression. This fact of the law is something other AI companies, like OpenAI, have relied upon to defend their use of copyrighted material from news organizations. On the other hand, if Perplexity is in fact creating verbatim reproductions of Britannica's works, then the plaintiff might have a much stronger case. Any reader could try asking ChatGPT to write the first page of the Harry Potter novel or any other popular copyrighted work, including news articles. The chatbot very rarely complies, as that would involve reproducing a copyrighted work, expression and all. In yet another salvo fired by publishers in their war against Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies, the Encyclopaedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster have sued AI giant Perplexity for copyright infringement. The plaintiffs, which publish encyclopedias and dictionaries respectively, allege that Perplexity's answer engine "free rides" on their investments by providing AI-generated summaries of their content, diverting traffic that would otherwise have gone to their websites. Perplexity is an AI-powered chatbot that operates as an "answer engine," conducting real-time internet searches in response to user queries and returning answers that contain relevant links alongside brief one-line summaries. This differentiates Perplexity from other AI products like ChatGPT, which is designed for creative content generation. The plaintiffs have sought monetary damages, a permanent injunction prohibiting Perplexity from engaging in such conduct, and compensation for legal costs. Britannica was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768 as a hard-copy encyclopedia and has since expanded its services to include curriculum products, language-study courses, and readiness training, reaching over 150 million students across more than 150 countries. The company produces content in over 20 languages and records over seven billion webpage views annually. The company operates through several brands, including Britannica Education, which provides instructional solutions for classrooms worldwide, and Merriam-Webster, which produces dictionaries. Britannica owns copyright in at least 12 collective works encompassing nearly 100,000 online articles, as well as copyright in the print volumes of the New Encyclopedia Britannica. The company holds several federally registered trademarks for the name "Britannica" and owns the federally registered trademark for its thistle logo. Merriam-Webster, founded in 1831, owns copyright in the print volume of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and holds several federally registered trademarks for various versions of the "Merriam-Webster" name. Perplexity employs retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), a technique that connects LLMs to external information sources to improve output quality. The company's process involves receiving user prompts, obtaining and copying content from search indices relating to the prompt, combining the original prompt with retrieved content for additional context, and providing the combined data to an LLM that generates natural-language responses. RAG content comprises material that AI companies use as source material to generate answers to user prompts and questions. The document alleges that since Perplexity's 2022 launch, the company has included all of the plaintiffs' copyrighted content as RAG content, including material covered by listed registrations, potentially through scraping content from the plaintiffs' websites. Perplexity's CEO, Aravind Srinivas, has positioned the company's approach as superior by emphasizing its principle that the system should not generate content beyond what it retrieves, ensuring factual grounding through adherence to retrieved source material and creating what the company describes as a "trust map of the web" that ranks sources by reliability. The complaint alleges that Perplexity violated Britannica's copyright at the data curation stage when it used software called "PerplexityBot" to crawl and scrape content from the plaintiff's website. It argues that this data curation process, which involves organizing, integrating, and maintaining data for efficient retrieval and analysis, is an essential part of Perplexity's RAG service. Britannica argued that Perplexity engaged in massive illegal copying of its content to serve as input for the RAG model through crawlers, at times evading technological protections meant to prevent such activities. Citing a WIRED article, the complaint notes that Perplexity repeatedly ignored the robots.txt protocol, which sets permissions for any crawlers attempting to access a website. Such activities violate Britannica's terms of service. The complaint also alleges that Perplexity's outputs constitute an independent copyright violation. It states that Perplexity either reproduces verbatim copies of Merriam-Webster or Britannica's content, or, on other occasions, paraphrases the content in a way that strongly resembles the original. Additionally, Britannica criticized Perplexity's responses to allegations of copyright infringement. It stated that while Perplexity attempted to defend itself by arguing that its citations increased traffic to original sources, it provided no evidence, and the plaintiffs observed minimal click-through traffic. Instead, Britannica alleged that Perplexity's model discouraged users from visiting original sites by summarizing content. The complaint notes that Perplexity introduced the Publishers' Program, offering revenue sharing, but did not disclose amounts and sought non-disclosure agreements with plaintiffs, who declined. Britannica also asserted that the program retroactively imposed license terms on content owners. It alleged that Perplexity's fair-use claim was incorrect, as its use was commercial, copied entire works, and harmed revenue. Britannica cited the U.S. Copyright Office's finding that RAG outputs summarizing articles were unlikely to be transformative and thus not fair use. Britannica also alleged that Perplexity's outputs contained a number of hallucinations, which it then falsely attributed to Britannica. This, they alleged, diluted or tarnished their marks and misled users. Britannica further alleged that Perplexity infringed its trademarks by presenting partial reproductions of Britannica articles without disclosing omissions, creating the impression that Perplexity had provided the full article. This practice allegedly caused harm by misrepresenting Britannica's content and misleading users about its completeness and authenticity. Britannica also argued that Perplexity diverted advertising and subscription revenue by copying its content and replacing visits to its websites. They stated that Perplexity's $20 billion valuation and $1.5 billion funding reflected a transfer of revenue from publishers. Britannica claimed that hallucinations and omissions harmed their trademarks and public trust. They alleged that Perplexity knew of licensing markets for AI training data but chose to scrape copyrighted content without permission. This conduct allegedly deprived Britannica of revenue and undermined economic incentives for creating reliable content. Britannica warned that such practices could create a cycle of declining investment, quality, and availability of trustworthy information, threatening the market for credible content.