Perplexity CEO surprised by lawsuit from publishers

The CEO of Perplexity, Aravind Srivas, said he was “surprised” by the lawsuit from media conglomerate Dow Jones and New York Post, owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. He said this at the WSJ Tech Live conference on Wednesday.

WSJ Tech Live on Wednesday.

On Monday, publishers affiliated with News Corp sued the California startup, accusing it of “massive illegal copying” of their copyrighted material. Srivas says representatives of the publishers contacted Perplexity in June, at which time the company expressed a willingness to discuss the use of their content.

Sriyvas.

In July Dow Jones and New York Post sent Perplexity a letter notifying it of legal concerns about unauthorized use of copyrighted material and offering to discuss possible licensing. However, according to the lawsuit, Perplexity has not responded to that offer.

According to the lawsuit, Perplexity has not responded to that offer.

Since the advent of ChatGPT publishers have increasingly raised concerns about chatbots that gather information from the Internet and create summaries for users using content without permission. Earlier in October New York Times sent Perplexity a notice demanding that it stop using their content for generative AI purposes.

New York Times sent Perplexity a notice demanding that it stop using their content for generative AI purposes.

In addition, Perplexity, backed by investors such as Nvidia and Jeff Bezos, has already faced accusations from media outlets such as Forbes and Wired of plagiarizing their content. In response to these claims, the company launched a revenue-sharing program to partially satisfy the publishers’ demands.

Publishers.