Perplexity accused of copyright infringement by Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune sued Perplexity AI for unlawfully copying and republishing its copyrighted journalism to power and output content in its AI “answer engine,” joining a broad wave of legal actions by media publishers against AI companies over content use without licenses. What happened The Chicago Tribune filed a lawsuit in federal court against Perplexity AI , alleging "brazen" and "systemic" copyright infringement and trademark violations. Specifically, the publisher alleged that Perplexity’s "answer engine" and its Comet browser use Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to bypass paywalls and scrape millions of copyrighted articles. Rather than directing users to the original source, the AI generates "substantially similar" or verbatim summaries that satisfy user queries on Perplexity's own platform. The suit claims this "free-riding" results in direct harm by: Starving revenue: Diverting web traffic and advertising dollars away from newsrooms. Trademark dilution: Attributing "hallucinations" (AI-generated falsehoods) to the Tribune, thereby damaging its reputation for accuracy. Unlicensed distribution: Reproducing investigative reporting and exclusive content without permission or compensation. The filing joined a wave of litigation from other major publishers, including The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , and The New York Post . Why it happened The conflict stems from a fundamental lack of transparency and sense of entitlement and unaccountability by Perplexity , combined with its aggressive "move fast" culture characteristic of many technology start-ups. Transparency limitations: Perplexity has been accused of using "shady tactics" to mask its web-crawling activities, allegedly ignoring robots.txt files (the industry standard for opting out of scraping) and bypassing digital gatekeepers like Cloudflare. Accountability gaps: While Perplexity claims it merely "indexes" the web for factual citations, publishers argue the RAG pipeline is designed to hide the extent of its copying. Corporate Strategy: The lawsuit highlights a shift in corporate accountability where AI firms prioritise rapid scaling and valuation over establishing fair-use licensing agreements, which competitors like OpenAI have begun to pursue with some media outlets. What it means For those directly impacted , such as journalists and local newsrooms, the outcome of this case is existential; if AI can freely repackage expensive, human-led reporting, the business model for journalism may collapse. For indirectly impacted content creators, a ruling against Perplexity would set a major legal precedent, potentially forcing all AI companies to pay for the data that powers their models. For society , the stakes involve the health of the "information ecosystem." If professional newsrooms disappear due to revenue loss, the high-quality data AI relies on will dry up, leaving a vacuum filled by unverified AI hallucinations and low-quality content, ultimately threatening the core of informed democratic discourse. System 🤖 Co met Perplexity Developer: Perplexity Country: USA Sector: Media/entertainment/sports/arts Purpose: Generate information Technology: Generative AI Issue: Accountability; Appropriation; Transparency Legal, regulatory 👩🏼‍⚖️ Chicago Tribune Company, LLC v. Perplexity AI, Inc.

Date it happened

2025-12-01

Product, system or model

Comet; Perplexity

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