Background

The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune have taken legal action against Perplexity, a company that offers generative‑AI tools such as chatbots and browser extensions. Both newspapers assert that Perplexive’s technology relies on large‑scale scraping of their websites, capturing articles, videos, images and other copyrighted material without permission. The suits allege that this practice violates copyright law and harms the publications’ reputations.

Allegations by The New York Times

The Times says it repeatedly sent cease‑and‑desist demands to Perplexity, requesting that the firm stop using its content. Despite these requests, the company continued to scrape the newspaper’s site in real time, using the material to train its AI models and to feed content into products like the Claude chatbot and the Comet browser. The lawsuit further claims that Perplexity’s AI outputs often reproduce The Times’ articles verbatim, and that the company has falsely attributed fabricated information to the newspaper, damaging its brand.

Allegations by the Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune’s complaint mirrors the Times’ claims. It accuses Perplexity of generating outputs that are “identical or substantially similar” to the Tribune’s content, and of unlawfully copying millions of the newspaper’s stories, videos, images and other works to power its tools. The Tribune’s lawsuit emphasizes the scale of the alleged infringement, describing the copying of “millions” of copyrighted items.

Industry Context

These lawsuits are part of a broader trend of media companies confronting AI developers over the use of copyrighted material. The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune join other publications that have sued major AI firms such as OpenAI and Microsoft for similar reasons. While some AI companies have negotiated licensing agreements with media outlets—OpenAI, for example, has struck multiple deals—the legal landscape remains unsettled as courts consider how copyright law applies to large‑scale data scraping and generative‑AI outputs.

Potential Implications

If the courts rule in favor of the newspapers, the decisions could set precedent for how AI firms must obtain permission before using copyrighted content for training or generation. The outcomes may also influence the financial terms of future licensing agreements between media companies and AI developers, potentially affecting the revenue streams of both parties.

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