Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster sue Perplexity for copying their definitions 

The AI web hunt institution Perplexity is being deed by different lawsuit alleging copyright and trademark infringement, this clip from Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster. Britannica, the centuries-old steadfast that owns Merriam-Webster, sued Perplexity successful New York national tribunal connected September 10th.

In the lawsuit, the companies allege that Perplexity’s “answer engine” scrapes their websites, steals their net traffic, and plagiarizes their copyrighted material. Britannica besides alleges trademark infringement erstwhile Perplexity attaches the 2 companies’ names to hallucinated oregon incomplete content. 

The connection “plagiarize” illustrates the constituent of the lawsuit. The tribunal papers includes back-to-back screenshots that amusement Perplexity’s effect is identical to Merriam-Webster’s definition. 

Perplexity positions itself arsenic a Google Search competitor. It has been called a “bullshit machine” that steals and recreates archetypal contented without due citations. The AI institution is besides accused of “stealth crawling” websites with crawler blockers, a practice utilized by different AI companies.  

Perplexity, backed by investors like Jeff Bezos, has tussled with different media outlets similar Forbes, The New York Times, and the BBC. News Corp, the genitor institution of outlets similar The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, sued Perplexity successful October 2024.

Some media companies joined Perplexity’s advertisement gross sharing program, including Time mag and the Los Angeles Times. Another fashionable encyclopedia, World History Encyclopedia, joined Perplexity’s publisher program, and connected September 8th, it launched a Perplexity-powered AI chatbot that allows users to sift done the encyclopedia’s database of sources and world articles.