The New York Times sues Perplexity, claiming it has lifted its content without permission

Perplexity, the AI search startup, is facing another copyright lawsuit.

The New York Times said it was suing Perplexity, alleging it has copied and distributed its journalism without permission.

The complaint says Perplexity reproduced pieces “verbatim or near-verbatim,” threatening the Times’ subscription and licensing revenue.

Perplexity’s use of copyrighted material has been questioned before. Forbes and Wired accused the company of pulling material from their sites while navigating around tools meant to block unauthorized scraping. Those publishers said Perplexity’s crawlers repackaged premium stories inside its answers.

Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post are also suing Perplexity, alleging copyright infringement.

Perplexity did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. In a blog post last year, the company wrote that “Perplexity, from its founding moment, has always listed sources above answers and provided in-line citations for every part of an answer.” It further said, “tools like Perplexity provide a fundamentally transformative way for people to learn facts about the world.”

Social media giant Reddit has also taken aim at Perplexity. In an October suit, it said Perplexity built a multibillion-dollar business by harvesting its content through search-engine caches to get around technical roadblocks. Reddit argued the tactic allowed Perplexity to skirt pay and access…