Perplexity AI is a web search engine that processes queries and synthesises responses. It is known for retrieving factual and citation-based information which is more trustworthy compared to ChatGPT. However, it has recently received threats of legal action from the BBC for reproducing content word for word without permission.
This is the first time the news agency has taken any sort of action against an AI company. BBC wrote to Perplexity, declaring it as copyright infringement in the UK and breaching the BBC’s terms of use. They also stated that popular AI firms, including Perplexity, were inaccurately summarising BBC news stories. It demanded Perplexity to stop using BBC’s content, delete any it has retained, and provide financial compensation for the information it has used.
In defence, Perplexity stated that these claims were "just one more part of the overwhelming evidence that the BBC will do to preserve Google’s illegal monopoly” without any further explanation of the link between Google and the BBC.
The Professional Publishers Association (PPA) responded about the concern that AI platforms were failing to uphold copyright laws and were being trained to scrape published content without permission or payment.
This legal situation is starting to bring up the question of AI’s ethical use of original published content to create its responses and whether it follows copyright laws.
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