Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas expressed surprise at the recent lawsuit filed by Rupert Murdoch’s Dow Jones and the New York Post, accusing the search startup of copyright infringement. Speaking at the WSJ Tech Live conference on Wednesday, Srinivas revealed that the lawsuit came despite initial outreach from the publishers earlier this year.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday, claims Perplexity engages in “massive illegal copying” of copyrighted content from media conglomerate News Corp-owned publishers. Srinivas explained that Dow Jones and the New York Post contacted Perplexity in June, and the startup indicated it was open to discussions. However, the lawsuit claims that after a follow-up letter in July offering a potential licensing deal, Perplexity failed to respond.
This legal action comes amid growing concerns from publishers about chatbots like Perplexity, which use AI to scrape the web and generate summaries. Just earlier this month, the New York Times issued a “cease and desist” notice to Perplexity for using its content without permission.
Perplexity, which is backed by Nvidia and Jeff Bezos, has also faced similar plagiarism claims from media outlets such as Forbes and Wired. To address these issues, the startup has since introduced a revenue-sharing program aimed at alleviating some concerns from publishers.