By Laurent Giret
Publication Date: 2025-12-05 16:41:00
The New York Times announced today that it’s suing AI startup Perplexity, which it’s accusing of repeated copyright violations. In the lawsuit, the publication said that Perplexity continued to use its content to generate its responses despite being asked repeatedly to stop over the past 18 months. Worse, the NYT is also accusing Perplexity of “damaging its brand” with incorrect responses, or “hallucinations” falsely attributed to the publication.
“Perplexity provides commercial products to its own users that substitute for The Times, without permission or remuneration,” the suit said. In some cases, Perplexity apparently uses entire NYT articles to provide answers that directly compete with the publication’s work, which wouldn’t qualify as fair use, the lawsuit claims.
On Thursday, Perplexity was also sued by The Chicago Tribune for copyright infringement. Last year, the AI startup was also sued by Dow Jones, the US company that publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and other publications, over similar accusations.
You may also remember that the NYT sued OpenAI and Microsoft two years ago, accusing the two companies of illegally using its articles to train their AI models. While that legal battle is still ongoing, the NYT announced an AI licensing deal with Amazon back in May 2025. The multi-year agreement allows the publication’s editorial content to appear across Amazon’s various platforms.
Perplexity launched a…
