Explained: CNN sued Perplexity for copying 17,000 stories; here is what the case means for AI and the news industry

CNN has filed lawsuit against Perplexity, alleging that this AI search engine is unlawfully distributing its copyrighted content.

CNN’s lawsuit alleges that Perplexity violated federal copyright law by copying more than 17,000 CNN stories, videos, images, and other content to power its products and tools. According to the suit, Perplexity “unlawfully crawls, scrapes, copies, and distributes CNN’s content” from CNN and third-party platforms, using it to build an AI-first search index that delivers CNN’s content in real time as input to large language models so they can formulate responses to user queries.

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This is CNN’s first ever lawsuit against an AI company.

What is Perplexity?

Perplexity is a San Francisco-based AI startup that runs as an “answer engine.” Instead of showing users a list of links to click, Perplexity uses AI to scan the web and generate direct, conversational answers to questions. It pulls from websites and news sources, processes that content through its AI models, and delivers summaries or responses to users without requiring them to visit the original source.

Also Read: ‘I was a fool’: Elon Musk loses legal battle against OpenAI, Sam Altman

The company uses AI to scour websites and answer users’ queries. The core tension in this lawsuit, and in several others like it, is that Perplexity is doing this without paying the publishers whose content it is using. Perplexity currently has a valuation of tens of billions of dollars.

What exactly is CNN accusing Perplexity of?

CNN’s claims break down into two main categories: copyright infringement and trademark violation.

On the copyright side, the lawsuit says Perplexity scrapes and copies CNN’s content from CNN’s own platforms as well as third-party platforms, then uses that content in real time as input to its large language models to generate responses to user prompts. This means when a user asks Perplexity a question about a news story, the system may be directly drawing from CNN’s reporting without sending that user to CNN’s website or paying CNN for the access.

On the trademark side, CNN also claimed Perplexity falsely advertised a continued relationship with CNN by claiming users can upgrade to its “Comet Plus” tier to get access to CNN’s premium content. However, since no such relationship exists, Perplexity is allegedly violating CNN’s trademark. The lawsuit further states that Perplexity’s actions infringe CNN’s exclusive rights in its federally registered trademarks, and have caused or are likely to cause confusion, mistake, or deception about whether the articles Perplexity provides are associated with, affiliated with, sponsored, endorsed, or approved by CNN.

CNN also accused Perplexity of exploiting audience trust in its brand. The network said Perplexity’s use is intended to reap the benefit of consumers’ trust in CNN.

What does CNN want from the court?

CNN asked the court to award statutory damages and to order Perplexity to stop using its content. The network has not specified a dollar figure in publicly available reports. But statutory damages under copyright law in the United States can be substantial, especially when infringement is willful.

What did CNN say publicly?

CNN drew a clear line between AI partnerships it considers legitimate and what it says Perplexity has been doing. The network emphasised that it “actively embraces the opportunities AI creates” and has “multiple commercial partnerships, active agreements, and ongoing discussions with responsible industry players.”

One such deal, with Meta, was public last December.

CNN’s position is that the problem is not AI itself. The problem is AI companies that use journalism without paying for it. A CNN spokesperson said that the public relies on high-quality news journalism reported by human beings to understand their world, and that this journalism is frequently dangerous and expensive to produce. The spokesperson added that commercial operators can and must pay to use it.

CNN’s statement said the network would prefer “sensible licensing arrangements” with operators, but that if a company refuses to enter into those arrangements, as Perplexity has so far refused to do, then it will have to pay through legal damages. The network’s statement concluded that there is no free option.

What has Perplexity said?

Nothing, yet.

In earlier cases, however, Perplexity has pushed back against the broader wave of litigation it is facing. Earlier this year, in a legal response to suits from The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, Perplexity said that attempts to stop this novel technology were fundamentally misguided. The company has previously characterized the legal fights as reflecting an outdated adversarial posture between media and technology.

Did CNN and Perplexity try to work this out before court?

Yes, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit states that before and after Perplexity’s negotiations with CNN, Perplexity knew it was not permitted to access CNN’s content or to use its trademarks or service marks. This suggests the two sides did have some form of negotiations, but those talks did not result in a licensing agreement. CNN proceeded to file suit after those discussions failed.

How does this fit into a bigger pattern?

This lawsuit is part of a growing stack of legal action against Perplexity from major media organizations. Perplexity is currently facing lawsuits from the New York Times, Reddit, and Dow Jones, among others. News Corp, the Chicago Tribune, Encyclopedia Britannica, and the Japanese media company Yomiuri Shimbun have also taken legal action against Perplexity in the past two years.

The broader issue driving all of these cases is the same. Since launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, news publishers and writers have been showing concerns about their content appearing in results of chatbot query.

Core complaint across all these cases is not just about lost page views. When Perplexity or similar AI tools answer question by summarising a news article, user gets information they need without ever visiting original news site. This cuts off the publisher from both advertising revenue and potential subscription conversions.

At scale, across millions of queries per day, publishers argue this amounts to a significant and ongoing financial injury.