Hustler Words – The Chicago Tribune has escalated the battle against AI-driven content platforms, filing a copyright infringement lawsuit against the burgeoning AI search engine, Perplexity. The legal action, lodged in a New York federal court on Thursday, alleges unauthorized use of the Tribune’s copyrighted material.
The heart of the dispute centers around claims that Perplexity is directly lifting content from the Chicago Tribune, despite initial assurances to the contrary. According to the lawsuit, the Tribune’s legal team contacted Perplexity in mid-October expressing concerns about the AI’s use of their content. Perplexity’s legal representatives responded that while their models weren’t directly trained on Tribune articles, the platform "may receive non-verbatim factual summaries." However, the Tribune contends that Perplexity is, in fact, delivering its content verbatim to users.
Adding another layer to the legal challenge, the Tribune is specifically targeting Perplexity’s use of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). RAG is designed to enhance the accuracy of AI responses by grounding them in verified data sources. The Tribune alleges that Perplexity is leveraging its content within its RAG system without obtaining proper permission. The lawsuit further claims that Perplexity’s Comet browser circumvents the Tribune’s paywall, providing users with detailed summaries of articles they would otherwise need a subscription to access.
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This lawsuit is not an isolated incident. The Chicago Tribune is part of a larger coalition of news publishers, including MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing, that initiated legal action against OpenAI and Microsoft in April, alleging copyright infringement related to model training. A subsequent lawsuit involving nine publishers from the same group was filed against the model maker and its cloud provider in November.
While numerous creators have pursued legal avenues against AI companies for utilizing their work in model training, this case could set a precedent for the legal responsibilities associated with RAG systems. The outcome of this lawsuit could have significant implications for the future of AI-driven content aggregation and the protection of copyrighted material.
Perplexity has not yet issued a formal response to the Chicago Tribune’s lawsuit, nor did it respond to a request for comment from Hustler Words. The AI search engine is already embroiled in similar legal battles, including a lawsuit filed by Reddit in October and another by Dow Jones. Last month, Amazon issued a cease and desist letter to Perplexity, threatening legal action over its AI browser shopping feature.
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