NYT Issues Cease and Desist to AI Startup Perplexity Over Content Use

The New York Times (NYT) has issued a "cease and desist" notice to Perplexity, a generative AI startup, demanding that it cease using the newspaper's content. This development, announced by Perplexity on Tuesday, highlights an ongoing conflict between traditional media companies and emerging AI technologies.

According to a letter from NYT, which it shared with Reuters, Perplexity's usage of its content—such as generating summaries and various other outputs—constitutes a violation of copyright law. NYT chose not to comment further on the situation.

Since the launch of ChatGPT, many publishers have expressed concerns about AI chatbots that sift through the internet to extract information and produce summaries for users.

NYT's Demands

In a letter dated October 2, NYT requested that Perplexity "immediately cease and desist all current and future unauthorized access and use of The Times's content." The newspaper also sought clarification on how Perplexity is able to access its website despite previous restrictions.

Perplexity had claimed it would discontinue the use of "crawling" technology to gather data from publishers. However, NYT alleges that its content continues to appear on the Perplexity platform.

Perplexity's Response

Perplexity responded to these allegations by stating, "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 startup indicated its intention to respond to NYT by the October 30 deadline set in the notice.

NYT is also currently in conflict with OpenAI, after suing the company last year for allegedly using a significant number of its articles without consent to train its AI chatbot.

Reports earlier this year revealed that various AI companies had been circumventing a web standard designed to prevent the scraping of published data for inclusion in generative AI systems.

Perplexity has faced scrutiny from other media outlets, including Forbes and Wired, for accusations of copyright infringement. In response to these concerns, it has initiated a revenue-sharing program to better accommodate publishers' interests.

As the landscape of technology and journalism continues to evolve, such disputes are likely to become increasingly common.

news, AI, copyright