Rupert Murdoch's media outlets initiate legal action against Perplexity AI, accusing them of partaking in extensive 'unfair exploitation'.
The companies under News Corp's ownership have accused Perplexity of employing its supposed "answer machine" with copyrighted material, gaining information by scraping content to produce responses for users' inquiries, thereby enabling users to bypass news publishers' websites.
The lawsuit claims that "What Perplexity fails to boast about is that its primary business strategy entails making vast use of Plaintiffs' protected content to rival Plaintiffs for the attention of the same news-hungry audience, consequently impeding Plaintiffs from accessing vital revenue streams."
In a statement, Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp., asserted that Perplexity "commits an infringement on intellectual property that negatively impacts journalists, writers, publishers, and News Corp."
Thomson further stated, "Perplexity has knowingly duplicated numerous copyrighted materials without remuneration, and audaciously reuses repackaged content as an alternative to the original source. Perplexity proudly advertises that users can 'skip the links,' apparently, Perplexity aims to skip the payment process as well."
A Perplexity spokesperson declined to comment on CNN's request for a response immediately.
The media industry is critically evaluating Perplexity's business practices, as they believe the company is exploiting copyrighted material for financial gain. The ongoing lawsuit suggests that Perplexity's primary business strategy involves reusing protected content to attract users and potentially generate revenue, thus potentially harming the revenue streams of other media businesses.
