CNN sues Perplexity for copying 17,000 works in landmark AI copyright case

Cable News Network yesterday filed a landmark copyright and trademark lawsuit against Perplexity AI in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging the AI search company unlawfully copied and redistributed more than 17,000 CNN stories, videos, images, and other works to power its commercial products – without authorization or payment.

The case, Cable News Network Inc v. Perplexity AI, Inc. (1:26-cv-04427), was filed on May 28, 2026, by law firm Rothwell, Figg, Ernst & Manbeck, P.C., with attorney Steven Lieberman signing the complaint. A filing fee of $405.00 was paid on submission, and the complaint is accompanied by two exhibits: Exhibit A listing the CNN works at issue and Exhibit B setting out CNN’s registered trademarks.

What CNN alleges

According to the complaint, Perplexity’s conduct violates CNN’s exclusive rights under the Copyright Act at two distinct stages. At the input stage, Perplexity allegedly crawls, scrapes, copies, and distributes CNN content from CNN’s digital platforms and third-party platforms using software programs including “PerplexityBot” and “Perplexity-User,” to build what Perplexity describes as an “AI-First” search index. At the output stage, Perplexity’s products then generate responses to user prompts that are, according to the filing, “identical or substantially similar to CNN’s content.”

The complaint states that Perplexity has “unlawfully copied over 17,000 CNN stories, videos, images,…