CNN sues AI search startup Perplexity for allegedly copying news stories without permission

CNN has filed a lawsuit against AI search startup Perplexity AI in a New York federal court, alleging the company illegally copied and distributed CNN’s copyrighted news content to power its AI-driven search products.

According to the complaint, Perplexity copied thousands of CNN articles, videos and images and used them to generate “identical or substantially similar” competing content for users.

CNN has sought unspecified monetary damages and a court order to stop the company from using its intellectual property without authorisation.

The lawsuit marks the latest legal battle between media publishers and artificial intelligence firms over the use of copyrighted material to train and operate AI systems.

“Perplexity should not be able to steal from entities that create the original content it exploits,” CNN said in a statement. The broadcaster argued that unauthorised use of its reporting undermines the economics of original journalism.

Perplexity rejected the allegations. Responding to the lawsuit, company spokesperson Jesse Dwyer said, “You can't copyright facts.”

The case adds to mounting legal pressure on Perplexity, which is already facing lawsuits from publishers including The New York Times, Dow Jones and Reddit over alleged copyright infringement and data scraping practices.

Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, publishers, authors and content creators have increasingly raised concerns that AI companies are using their material without consent or compensation.

Several media organisations have instead opted to sign licensing agreements with AI companies to allow controlled access to news content in exchange for payments and attribution links to original articles.