CNN sues Perplexity alleging ‘massive’ copyright infringement
CNN today opened a lawsuit against the AI firm Perplexity AI Inc., alleging the company has violated copyright protections by using artificial intelligence to re-write its reporting, thereby undermining the foundation of its economic model.
CNN now joins a long line of publishers that have sued AI firms for copyright infringement. It’s also not the first Perplexity has found itself being sued. The New York Times filed a lawsuit against the company in 2024, with the newspaper also launching similar lawsuits against Microsoft Corp. and Open AI Group PBC.
“CNN’s lawsuit stands for the proposition that Perplexity, a company valued at tens of billions of dollars, should not be able to steal from entities that create the original content Perplexity exploits,” said a CNN spokesperson. “The public rely on high quality news journalism reported by human beings to understand their world, which is frequently dangerous and expensive to produce. Commercial operators can and must pay to make use of it.”
Perplexity’s chief communications officer Jesse Dwyer countered by saying, “You can’t copyright facts.”
