Condé Nast Accuses AI Search Startup Perplexity of Plagiarism Claims

Condé Nast, the media powerhouse behind The New Yorker, Vogue, and Wired, has issued a cease-and-desist letter to AI search startup Perplexity, as reported by The Information. The letter, sent on Monday, demands that Perplexity halt the use of content from Condé Nast publications in its AI-generated responses, citing allegations of plagiarism. This action adds Condé Nast to a growing list of publishers addressing the unauthorized use of their material by AI firms, following similar moves by Forbes last month.

Perplexity, a San Francisco-based startup valued at $3 billion and backed by notable investors like the Jeff Bezos family fund and NVIDIA, is facing scrutiny for its content practices. Concerns have emerged regarding its adherence to copyright laws and the ethical implications of its operations. A recent Wired investigation revealed that Perplexity's web crawlers disregard robots.txt, a file that website owners use to block bots from scraping their content. In response to these findings, Amazon Web Services has reportedly initiated an investigation into whether Perplexity violated its web scraping policies. Reports from Reuters indicate that Perplexity is among several AI companies ignoring robots.txt guidelines.

The situation raises significant ethical and legal questions about AI development and its impact on content creators. In light of these issues, Perplexity executives have discussed the possibility of implementing a revenue-sharing program with publishers, although specific details remain unclear.

Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch has warned that many media companies could face financial devastation while awaiting the resolution of potential litigation against generative AI firms. He has urged Congress to take immediate action, advocating for AI companies to compensate publishers for using their content and to establish licensing agreements moving forward. Earlier this month, three senators introduced the COPIED Act, aimed at protecting journalists, artists, and songwriters from AI companies that utilize their content for training AI models.