CNN sues AI platform Perplexity over alleged copyright theft

The lawsuit accused Perplexity of scraping more than 17,000 CNN stories, photos, videos, and other content to train its products.

The move is the news network’s first legal case against an AI company seeking to protect its copyrights and is believed to be the first lawsuit in this area by a TV network.

News companies, including the New York Times, Dow Jones, and the New York Post, have filed similar lawsuits against Perplexity. Other news publishers, including Time and USA Today Co., have struck deals with the company.

The lawsuits are part of a wider industry effort to ensure news providers are fairly compensated in a world where consumers increasingly turn to AI providers for news.

“CNN’s lawsuit stands for the proposition that Perplexity, a company valued at tens of billions of dollars, should not be able to steal from entities that create the original content Perplexity exploits,” a CNN Spokesperson said. “The public relies on high-quality news journalism reported by human beings to understand their world, which is frequently dangerous and expensive to produce. Commercial operators can and must pay to make use of it.”

In a statement to CNN, Jesse Dwye, Chief Communications Officer of Perplexity, said: “You can’t copyright facts".

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