AI start-up Perplexity refutes copyright infringement allegations by News Corp
AI start-up Perplexity, famous for its innovative search engine, has responded to a lawsuit filed by News Corp. The media conglomerate, which owns prominent outlets like The New York Post and Dow Jones (The Wall Street Journal's parent company), has accused Perplexity of unauthorized content scraping. In a blog post, Perplexity has defended its actions and criticized the media industry's approach toward tech companies.
Perplexity criticizes media's 'adversarial' stance in copyright dispute
Perplexity has described the lawsuit as a sign of an "adversarial posture between media and tech that is — while depressingly familiar — fundamentally shortsighted, unnecessary, and self-defeating." The company contends that such lawsuits indicate a desire for a world where "publicly reported facts are owned by corporations, and no one can do anything with those publicly reported facts without paying a toll." The statement comes after News Corp claimed Perplexity's search engine "copies on a massive scale."
Copyright infringement denied, allegations called 'misleading'
Perplexity has denied the copyright infringement allegations, saying "no one, including corporations, owns facts." The company explained that while copyright can protect the expression of facts, it doesn't apply to the facts themselves. This comes after Forbes accused Perplexity of using "eerily similar wording" and "some entirely lifted fragments" from its articles. The AI start-up called the claims in News Corp's lawsuit "misleading at best."
News Corp CEO accuses Perplexity of 'abuse of intellectual property'
News Corp's CEO Robert Thomson has accused Perplexity of committing an "abuse of intellectual property that harms journalists, writers, publishers and News Corp." He also alleged that the company has "willfully copied copious amounts of copyrighted material without compensation," and presents repurposed material as a substitute for the original source. Thomson's statement came in response to Perplexity's claim that there are "countless things we would love to do beyond what the default application of law allows."
