CNN reportedly sues Perplexity over alleged AI copyright infringement

CNN has reportedly filed a lawsuit against AI search engine company Perplexity, accusing the firm of unlawfully copying and distributing its copyrighted content.

Filed on Thursday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the lawsuit reportedly marks CNN’s first copyright action against an AI company and is believed to be the first such case brought by a television network.

According to Reuters, CNN alleged that Perplexity copied “thousands” of its stories, videos and images to power its AI products, while distributing “identical or substantially similar” competing content.

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A CNN spokesperson reportedly said the lawsuit reflects its position that Perplexity, despite its multibillion-dollar valuation, should compensate publishers whose original journalism it allegedly uses to power its AI products.

CNN also reportedly argued in its complaint that Perplexity’s alleged actions undermine the economics of original journalism by exploiting reporting that is expensive and resource-intensive to produce.

Perplexity has reportedly denied the allegations. “You can’t copyright facts,” spokesperson Jesse Dwyer said in a statement quoted by media reports.

According to CNN, the media company had previously attempted to negotiate a licensing agreement with Perplexity last year, but both parties failed to reach terms.

The network said it remains open to “sensible licensing arrangements” and noted that it has existing AI-related commercial partnerships and ongoing discussions with other technology players. One such deal, with Meta, was publicly reported in December last year, CNN added.

CNN is reportedly seeking unspecified monetary damages and a court order to prevent Perplexity from further violating its intellectual property rights.

The case is the latest legal challenge facing Perplexity. The AI startup has also reportedly been sued by publishers including The New York Times, Dow Jones and Reddit over allegations tied to copyright infringement and data scraping.

At the same time, several publishers have pursued licensing partnerships with AI companies instead of litigation. Media reports stated that firms such as Gannett, TIME, Le Monde and Der Spiegel have signed agreements with Perplexity in recent years.

The dispute comes amid mounting legal scrutiny surrounding how AI companies use and retain user and publisher data. Last year, OpenAI pushed back against a US court order requiring it to hand over 20 million anonymised ChatGPT conversations to The New York Times and other publishers as part of an ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit.

At the time, OpenAI argued that the vast majority of the transcripts were unrelated to the claims in the case and warned that complying with the order could expose confidential user conversations from the past three years.

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