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Why Perplexity AI’s Approach Might Be Its Downfall in the Battle with News Corp

By Asaf Shamly | October 31, 2024

In case you’ve missed it, News Corp, the parent company behind The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post has hit Perplexity AI startup with a copyright infringement lawsuit.

News Corp is accusing Perplexity of using its articles to fuel search results without permission in a move that crosses copyright red lines. In other words, News Corp is saying Perplexity is taking advantage of news content without contributing anything back. This type of accusation isn’t the first and probably not the last in the gray area of AI.

 

Why Perplexity AI’s ‘Freeriding’ Isn’t Going to Last

While nothing new in the world of AI-media conflicts, this lawsuit is probably going to end badly for Perplexity. I doubt the company can stand up against industry giants such as News Corp.

Perplexity will probably claim it uses the news as aggregators to train their AI. Will this defense be enough? Probably not, especially since the company isn’t under fire for the first time. Just this summer, Perplexity was accused of publishing a story very similar to one published by Forbes, obviously, without crediting them.

 

Media Versus AI – One More Battle

This situation isn’t unique. In fact, media and publishing giants are already pioneering content licensing for AI. Just take News Corp’s own deal with Open AI’s ChatGPT as an example. While some are at least trying to contribute back, others are still looking for shortcuts, or so News Corp claims.

This doesn’t look like an easy battle for Perplexity. Dealing with giants such as News Corp isn’t an easy task, especially given AI is such a gray area. For now, we return to the already familiar question – where’s the line between ‘using’ and ‘stealing’ content with AI? Only time and probably many lawsuits.. will tell.

 

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