New York Times Issues Cease and Desist Notice to AI Startup Perplexity Over Content Usage

Perplexity Gets 'Cease and Desist' Notice From the New York Times

The New York Times has sent Perplexity a "cease and desist" notice demanding the company stop using the newspaper's content for generative AI purposes, the startup said on Tuesday, marking the latest clash between the news publisher and an AI firm. The news publisher said in the letter, a copy of which it shared with Reuters, that the way Perplexity was using its content, including to create summaries and other types of output, violates copyright law. NYT declined to provide additional comment on the matter.

NYT Sends AI Startup Perplexity 'Cease and Desist' Notice Over Content Use

Perplexity plans to respond by an October 30 deadline set by the NYT The New York Times has sent Perplexity a "cease and desist" notice demanding the company stop using the newspaper's content for generative AI purposes, the startup said on Tuesday, marking the latest clash between the news publisher and an AI firm. The news publisher said in the letter, a copy of which it shared with Reuters, that the way Perplexity was using its content, including to create summaries and other types of output, violates copyright law. NYT declined to provide additional comment on the matter. Since the introduction of ChatGPT, publishers have been raising the alarm on chatbots that can comb the internet to find information and create paragraph summaries for the user. In the letter to Perplexity dated Oct. 2, NYT demanded the AI firm "immediately cease and desist all current and future unauthorized access and use of The Times's content." It also asked Perplexity to provide information on how it is accessing the publisher's website despite its prevention efforts. Perplexity had previously assured publishers it would stop using "crawling" technology, according to the letter. Despite this, NYT said its content still appears in Perplexity. "We are not scraping data for building foundation models, but rather indexing web pages and surfacing factual content as citations to inform responses when a user asks a question," Perplexity told Reuters. The startup also said it plans to respond by an Oct. 30 deadline set by NYT to provide the requested information. NYT is also tussling with OpenAI, which it had sued late last year, accusing the firm of using millions of its newspaper articles without permission to train its AI chatbot. Earlier this year, Reuters reported multiple AI companies were bypassing a web standard used by publishers to block the scraping of their data used in generative AI systems. Perplexity faced accusations from media organizations such as Forbes and Wired for plagiarizing their content, but has since launched a revenue-sharing program to address some concerns put forward by publishers.

NYT sends AI startup Perplexity 'cease and desist' notice over content use, WSJ reports

(Reuters) - The New York Times has sent generative AI startup Perplexity a "cease and desist" notice demanding the company stop using its content, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The letter from the news publisher said the way Perplexity was using its content, including to create summaries and other types of output, violates its rights under copyright law, the report said. Perplexity and New York Times did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. NYT is also tussling with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which it had sued late last year, accusing the firm of using millions of its newspaper articles without permission to train its AI chatbot. (Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)

NYT sends AI startup Perplexity 'cease and desist' notice over content use, WSJ reports

Oct 15 (Reuters) - The New York Times has sent generative AI startup Perplexity a "cease and desist" notice demanding the company stop using its content, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The letter from the news publisher said the way Perplexity was using its content, including to create summaries and other types of output, violates its rights under copyright law, the report said. Perplexity and New York Times did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Advertisement · Scroll to continue NYT is also tussling with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which it had sued late last year, accusing the firm of using millions of its newspaper articles without permission to train its AI chatbot. Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

NYT Sends AI Startup Perplexity 'Cease and Desist' Notice Over Content Use, WSJ Reports

(Reuters) - The New York Times has sent generative AI startup Perplexity a "cease and desist" notice demanding the company stop using its content, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The letter from the news publisher said the way Perplexity was using its content, including to create summaries and other types of output, violates its rights under copyright law, the report said. Perplexity and New York Times did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. NYT is also tussling with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which it had sued late last year, accusing the firm of using millions of its newspaper articles without permission to train its AI chatbot. (Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)

Perplexity AI Faces Legal Action from NYT Over Unauthorized Content Use

The New York Times has issued a cease and desist notice to AI startup Perplexity, accusing the company of unauthorized use of its content for generative AI purposes. The New York Times has sent a cease and desist notice to AI startup Perplexity, demanding the company stop using its content for generative AI purposes. The move disclosed by Perplexity on Tuesday, adds to a growing number of legal clashes between media organizations and AI firms over content usage without permission. In the letter, dated October 2 and shared with Reuters, the Times stated that Perplexity's use of its content, including generating summaries and other outputs, violates copyright law. The newspaper accused the AI startup of continuing to use its material despite assurances that it would halt certain data-collection methods. Perplexity had previously told publishers it would cease "crawling" technologies to gather data but was still accused of improperly using NYT's content. Perplexity, a company that employs AI for the provision of answers to user's questions, defended its practices. The company in its defense stated it was not 'scraping' data for the purpose of setting up foundation models claiming that it was simply indexing websites and cite factual contents to answer queries made by users. Whose content doesn't avail like the New York times complaints raised, the content has been used without permission blocking such actions from happening. As a result, the newspaper sought data from Perplexity on how it was accessing the content of the paper and called for an urgent end to the unlawful use of its materials. Perplexity declared that it would likewise give a response before the stipulated deadline of 30th October 10th, therefore complying with the request. The controversy illustrates a continuing problem faced by news outlets in attempting to shield their material from unauthorized usage by AI corporations. This confrontation is, however, just one of many in the war between AI companies and media publishers which emanated from the introduction of AI models like . The New York Times and other media organizations have spoken out against the use of such systems which utilize content of the publishers for training purposes without compensating them.Earlier this year, the Times also filed a lawsuit against OpenAI accusing it of using millions of its articles to develop its chatbot. As AI evolves so do the laws pertaining to how content can be used, with companies such as Perplexity, which already attracted the ire of reporters from Forbes and Wired for allegedly plagiarizing other publications, now finding themselves under renewed scrutiny. In response to these allegations, Perplexity announced Main as the newest money making scheme now available for publishers, a profit sharing plan. Put at the outset the fact that even if there were resolutions reached concerning other issues, the Litigation, there are some outstanding claims.

The New York Times has had it with generative AI companies using its content | TechCrunch

The New York Times sent a cease and desist letter demanding that Jeff Bezos-backed Perplexity stop accessing and using its content in AI summaries and other output. The Wall Street Journal reviewed the document. The letter argues that Perplexity has been "unjustly enriched" by using the publisher's "expressive, carefully written and researched, and edited journalism without a license," which it says violates copyright laws. This isn't the paper's first tangle with AI companies - it's suing OpenAI for using content without consent to train ChatGPT. Other publishers have also accused Perplexity of unethical web scraping. A recent study from Copyleaks, a tool to check for plagiarism and AI-generated content, found that Perplexity was able to summarize paywalled content from publishers. Perplexity recently launched an ad-revenue share scheme to give some money back to publishers. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas told WSJ the startup is interested in working with the NYT, stating, "We have no interest in being anyone's antagonist here."

The New York Times tells Perplexity to stop using its content

One of the nation's largest newspapers is targeting another AI firm for reusing its content without its permission. reported that the New York Times sent a cease and desist letter to Perplexity, the AI startup funded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The letter states that Perplexity's use of the New York Times' content to create answers and summaries with its AI portal violates copyright law. The letter states that Perplexity and its backers "have been unjustly enriched by using, without authorizations, The Times' expressive, carefully written and researched, and edited journalism without a license" and gave the startup until October 30 to respond before taking legal action. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas told the Journal that they aren't ignoring the notice. He added they are "very much interested in working with every single publisher, including the New York Times." This isn't the first time an AI company has earned the wrath of the New York Times' legal team. The newspaper took to court over claims that both used articles from its pages to train its AI software. The suit alleges both companies used more than 66 million records across its archives to train its AI modes representing "almost a century's worth of copyrighted content." also started an investigation over the summer into Perplexity AI. reported that a machine hosted on Amazon Web Services and operated by Perplexity visited hundreds of Condé Nast publications and properties hundreds of times to scan for content to use in its response and data collections.

NY Times Sends Perplexity a Cease and Desist Letter

The New York Times Company sent AI startup Perplexity a "cease and desist" notice demanding that the firm stop using its content, the Wall Street Journal reported. The letter follows a lawsuit filed by the Times against OpenAI at the end of last year, alleging copyright infringement in how the ChatGPT creator used NY Times content in training of its large language models. Other publishers,

NYT Issues Cease and Desist notice to Perplexity for AI Scraping

Disclaimer: This content generated by AI & may have errors or hallucinations. Edit before use. Read our Terms of use The New York Times (NYT) has issued a "cease and desist" notice to Perplexity, an AI startup supported by Jeff Bezos, demanding the company stop using its content for generative AI purposes. This marks the latest conflict between NYT and AI firms over alleged copyright infringement. NYT claimed that Perplexity's use of its content -- such as creating summaries -- violates copyright law, as reported by WSJ. NYT asked Perplexity to clarify how it accesses its website despite its efforts to block such activity. Although Perplexity had previously assured the publisher that it would cease using "crawling" technology, the NYT said that its content still appeared on the platform. In response, Perplexity stated, "We are not scraping data for building foundation models, but rather indexing web pages and surfacing factual content as citations to inform responses when a user asks a question." The AI startup plans to respond to the publication by October 30, after which a potential legal confrontation could arise. Further, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas says the firm wants to collaborate with the NYT. "We are very much interested in working with every single publisher, including The New York Times," Srinivas told WSJ. "We have no interest in being anyone's antagonist here," he added. A spokesperson for Perplexity noted, as per the WSJ report, that no single organisation can claim copyright over facts. Previously, Perplexity has faced accusations from media organizations including Forbes and Wired of plagiarizing their content, but has since launched revenue-sharing mechanisms to address some concerns put forward by publishers. This isn't the first time NYT is suing AI platforms over copyright infringement. In December 2023, NYT had filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing the AI company of using millions of its newspapers articles without consent to train its AI chatbot. The case remains ongoing. Since then, they have exchanged jabs, with OpenAI accusing NYT of "hacking" ChatGPT, which the publication denies. In its 35-page filing, OpenAI stated that the individuals were able to achieve this by targeting and exploiting a bug -- which OpenAI has committed to fix -- by using misleading prompts that clearly violate its terms of use. However, OpenAI did not specify further who it believes 'hacked' ChatGPT. Microsoft has backed OpenAI, asserting that the lawsuit filed by NYT against them fuels "doomsday futurology." This approach from NYT lies in contrast with other news outlets such as Associated Press, The Atlantic, Financial Times, Semafor, Business Insider, Dotdash Meredith, Vox Media, and WSJ, all of which have signed AI licensing deals. In recent years, publishers have been increasingly raising concerns about chatbots that can comb through the internet to find information to create paragraph summaries for the user. Earlier this year, Reuters reported that several AI companies were circumventing a web standard used by publishers to prevent data scraping for generative AI systems. Some tech and AI firms argue that scraping content from 'open' websites falls under "fair use", though this has yet to be proven in court. Last month, Cloudflare launched its AI Audit tools, enabling websites to control how AI accesses their content. Moreover, it is also developing methods for publishers to monetize AI interest in their data, facilitating content protection into a potential revenue stream. Cloudflare's solution allows website owners to block chatbots en masse, streamlining the process of protecting one's content.

New York Times takes aim at another AI company

The New York Times has sent a cease and desist letter to Perplexity, a hot AI startup often touted as a promising competitor to Google search, over alleged copyright infringement. The move, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, follows a Times lawsuit last year against OpenAI, accusing the ChatGPT-maker of stealing content to train its powerful AI with copyrighted material. The Times' confrontational approach contrasts with many news outlets that have entered into content deals with platforms that crawled websites to enhance their technology without prior permission. In a letter seen by AFP dated October 2, the Times accused San Francisco-based Perplexity of unauthorized use of its copyrighted content in the company's artificial intelligence products. Perplexity.ai is an AI-powered search engine and 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. The letter, addressed to Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, outlined several alleged violations, including breaches of the Times' Terms of Service, unauthorized circumvention of paywall measures, and unjust enrichment through the use of Times journalism without a license. The Times added that despite an assurance that Perplexity was no longer crawling its data, evidence suggested that it still was. It claimed that the AI company was using Times content through a technique called Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) without permission. RAG allows AI systems to refine responses by pulling in relevant information from a database of existing content, enhancing up-to-date facts and data into an existing AI model. The newspaper gave Perplexity until October 30, 2024, to comply with its demands and put the company on notice to preserve all relevant documents related to its use of Times content. This signaled potential legal action if the matter is not resolved. Perplexity said it would reply to the letter, just as it had done when similarly approached by Forbes and Conde Nast. The spokesperson said that the company was not scraping data, "but rather indexing web pages and surfacing factual content..." "The law recognizes that no one organization owns the copyright over facts," the spokesperson added.

New York Times Sends Perplexity Cease-and-Desist Over AI Scraping

The New York Times has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Jeff Bezos-backed Perplexity demanding the AI startup stop using its content, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal published Tuesday. "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 newspaper wrote in its legal letter, which gives Perplexity a deadline of Oct. 30 to respond. The paper accuses Perplexity of circumventing its anti-scraping and anti-bot measures. Its robots.txt page specifically disallows "PerplexityBot," the startup's scraping bot, though it's unclear if Perplexity uses others, as well, or other intermediary methods that indirectly pull from the outlet's content like a pre-collected dataset (PCMag's own robots.txt also disallows Perplexity). Robots.txt pages are rules that can be broken, however. So even if a site has one, "bad" bots can still scrape it. In response, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas says the firm wants to collaborate with the Times. "We are very much interested in working with every single publisher, including The New York Times," Srinivas told WSJ. "We have no interest in being anyone's antagonist here." In June, a Perplexity rep told PCMag via email that its PerplexityBot "respects robots.txt." Because the bot runs on Amazon Web Services, Perplexity also said its scraping bot isn't "crawling in any way that violates AWS Terms of Service." But some tech and AI firms have also taken the stance that scraping any site they want constitutes "fair use," though that has yet to be proven in court. Many AI firms may also be desperate for fresh, human-generated data pilfered for free. One professor has warned that AI companies are "running out of text" on which to train their chatbots. Regardless of what Perplexity says it is or isn't doing, news outlets aren't happy. Condé Nast, which owns Wired, The New Yorker, and Vogue, previously sent Perplexity a cease and desist, alleging it's been scraping its sites and using that content for its own financial gain. Forbes has also fired shots at the AI firm, accusing it of theft and creating "knockoff stories" based on Forbes articles. Other AI firms have also come under fire for using copyrighted content without consent or payment. While many continue to scrape the web anyway, some have decided to strike content licensing deals with news outlets too. Associated Press, The Atlantic, Financial Times, Semafor, Business Insider, Dotdash Meredith, Vox Media, and even the WSJ itself are all part of AI licensing deals struck by their respective leaders or parent companies. Other news outlets, however, are trying to hold AI firms accountable for swiping their content without permission. The New York Times filed its lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft late last year, and remains ongoing. They've since exchanged some public jabs, with OpenAI accusing NYT of "hacking" ChatGPT, which the paper denies. Microsoft, similarly, has defended OpenAI, claiming the paper is boosting "doomsday futurology" with the lawsuit. In April, a collection of over half a dozen newspapers including the Orange County Register and the New York Daily News also sued OpenAI and Microsoft for similar reasons. Perplexity, specifically, has been criticized for using news outlets' stories to generate its own, without adequately citing or linking to its source material in a way that's clearly visible. Unsurprisingly, however, Perplexity doesn't see it that way.

The New York Times warns AI search engine Perplexity to stop using its content

The New York Times has demanded that AI search engine startup Perplexity stop using content from its site in a cease and desist letter sent to the company, reports The Wall Street Journal. The Times, which is currently suing OpenAI and Microsoft over allegedly illegally training models on its content, says the startup has been using its content without permission, a claim made earlier this year by Forbes and Condé Nast. The WSJ included this passage from the letter: "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 New York Times prohibits using its content for AI model training. It disallows several AI crawlers, including Perplexity's, in its robots.txt file that tells search engine crawlers which URLs they can index. The New York Times In a statement from Perplexity spokesperson Sara Platnick, the company says it doesn't scrape content for AI training but also argues that "no one organization owns the copyright over facts" to defend what it says is "indexing web pages and surfacing factual content." It plans to respond to the notice by the Times' deadline of October 30th. Perplexity: We believe in transparency and have a public page on our website that clarifies our content policies and how we use web content. We aren't scraping data for building foundation models, but rather indexing web pages and surfacing factual content as citations to inform responses when a user asks a question. The law recognizes that no one organization owns the copyright over facts. This is what allows us to have a rich and open information ecosystem, not to mention, it gives news organizations the ability to report on topics that were previously covered by another news outlet. Following the plagiarism accusations over the summer, Perplexity made some publisher deals, offering ad revenue and free subscriptions to partners that include Fortune, Time, and The Texas Tribune. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas told the Journal that Perplexity has "no interest in being anyone's antagonist here" and is interested in "working with every single publisher, including the New York Times."

How Damaging Are AI News Summaries to Publishers?

What Happened to Outfest? Film Festival's Former Top Exec Sues Over Its Collapse As AI companies hoover up troves of content across the internet, search traffic is positioned as the next front in the tug-of-war between publishers and Big Tech. Media organizations are pushing to shape the tools that create AI-generated summaries of their news stories, sometimes without attribution or citation, allowing users to bypass their articles. The New York Times has sent generative AI startup Perplexity, backed by Jeff Bezos and YouTube's ex-chief executive, a cease and desist for copying its articles and using them to create summaries of articles. The publisher says the practice constitutes "egregious and ongoing violations" of its intellectual property rights since the answers are "substitutive of our protected works." So far, most battles in the AI world have largely revolved around the use of copyrighted content to train large language models, the systems that power ChatGPT and other chatbots. But publishers also take issue with AI firms ripping off their reporting in response to search queries. This has played a part in prompting media organizations to ink deals with OpenAI and other AI firms, including Perplexity. A major component of these agreements, which could also feature much-needed financial windfalls amid a declining media landscape, is citations and direct links to content from publishers used to answer queries. In a recent deal between the Sam Altman-led firm and Hearst, OpenAI said that this will provide "transparency and easy access to the original" sources. In a statement, Hearst Magazines president Debi Chirichella said the partnership will "help us evolve the future of magazine content." She added, "This collaboration ensures that our high-quality writing and expertise, cultural and historical context and attribution and credibility are promoted as OpenAI's products evolve." Publishers that've reached similar arrangements with OpenAI include Axel Springer, owner of Politico and Business Insider; News Corp.; The Associated Press; the Financial Times; Vox Media; and The Atlantic. Hearst Newspapers president Jeff Johnson stressed the synergy in these types of deals in manufacturing "more timely and relevant results." The legal waters are muddy. Under intellectual property laws, facts aren't copyrightable. It's the arrangement and composition of facts that are protected. This means that journalists are free to report common details without concern of infringement as long as they aren't copying excerpts word-for-word. That principle is among the reasons that the Times may face an uphill battle in its lawsuit against OpenAI, though the production of evidence of ChatGPT generating verbatim responses of its articles may get it over the hump. Fair use, which allows for works to be utilized in certain circumstances without a license, will be a key battleground. In May, a major trade group representing the news industry urged lawmakers to intervene in Google's expansion of AI Overviews, which combines answers generated from AI systems alongside snippets of text from linked websites. The tool "will further entrench Google's monopoly power while starving digital publishers of monetization opportunities to fund high-quality, original content," the letter stated. In response to the Times' letter, Perplexity maintained in a statement that it's on solid legal footing. "The law recognizes that no one organization owns the copyright over facts," it said. "This is what allows us to have a rich and open information ecosystem, not to mention, it gives news organizations the ability to report on topics that were previously covered by another news outlet." This isn't Perplexity's first time rankling a publisher. Earlier this year, Forbes threatened legal action against the AI firm for ripping off its work without attribution. The dispute related to the company publishing an AI-generated version of a story about a Forbes investigative piece on former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, followed up by an AI-generated podcast, which was then turned into a YouTube video. That video outranked Forbes' article on Google search. Perplexity chief executive Aravind Srinivas told the Associated Press at the time that it's "actually more of an aggregator of information" rather than a news outlet. Publishers have reason to worry. More than a decade ago, the normalization of tech companies carrying content created by news organizations without directly paying them -- cannibalizing readership and ad revenue -- precipitated the decline of the media industry. With the rise of generative AI, those same firms threaten to further tilt the balance of power between Big Tech and news.