Reddit Sues Perplexity For Stealing Its Data To Train AI Answer Engine: All You Need To Know

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social media platform Reddit has filed a lawsuit against AI startup Perplexity in a New York federal court, accusing the company of illegally scraping its data to train its AI-powered search engine. According to a Reuters report, Perplexity and three other firms -- Lithuania-based Oxylabs, Russia-based AWMProxy, and Texas-based SerpApi -- bypassed Reddit’s data protection systems to access and use its content without permission.

Reddit vs Perplexity

Reddit claimed that Perplexity 'desperately needs' this data to power its AI answer engine. The lawsuit adds to a growing number of cases filed by content owners against AI companies for using copyrighted material without consent. Reddit had earlier filed a similar case against AI startup Anthropic in June, which is still pending.Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief legal officer, said AI firms are locked in a race for quality human content, fuelling what he called an industrial-scale data laundering economy.Perplexity, in response, denied the allegations. "Our approach remains principled and responsible as we provide factual answers with accurate AI, and we will not tolerate threats against openness and the public interest," the company was quoted as saying. Reddit said it has already licensed its content to some major AI players, including Google and OpenAI. However, it claimed Perplexity had no such license and continued to rely on scraped data, even after being sent a cease-and-desist letter last year.Reddit said that after the warning, Perplexity mentioned or used Reddit content about 40 times more than before. Both SerpApi and Oxylabs have denied wrongdoing and said they would defend themselves in court. Reddit is looking for monetary damages and a court order to stop Perplexity from using its data further.