CNN sues – CNN filed a lawsuit against AI search company Perplexity, accusing it of massive copyright infringement, including scraping CNN’s site and copying more than 17,000 pieces of content.
CNN’s legal team didn’t wait for a clean handshake with the AI search world. On Thursday. the cable news network filed a lawsuit against Perplexity. accusing the company of “massive copyright infringement” that. according to the complaint. includes scraping CNN’s website and copying more than 17. 000 pieces of its content.
The lawsuit alleges that Perplexity “unlawfully crawls. scrapes. copies. and distributes CNN’s content from CNN Digital Platforms and third-party platforms.” It also claims Perplexity’s tools reproduce “verbatim copies” of CNN articles—including paywalled stories—in query responses delivered to users.
CNN further argues that the AI system goes beyond copying by incorrectly attributing “hallucinated” content to CNN. In the suit, the network says that behavior violates its trademark.
A CNN spokesperson framed the case as a simple boundary: original journalism can’t be treated like free raw material. “CNN’s lawsuit stands for the proposition that Perplexity. a company valued at tens of billions of dollars. should not be able to steal from entities that create the original content Perplexity exploits. ” the spokesperson said in a statement. The spokesperson added that the public depends on “high quality news journalism reported by human beings” and that commercial operators “can and must pay” to use it.
This isn’t the first time media and reference publishers have challenged Perplexity’s approach to content. The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Reddit, Merriam-Webster, Encyclopedia Britannica and Nikkei have also filed lawsuits over alleged scraping and use of content without permission.
Perplexity, for its part, has pushed back on the notion that its use of information is unlawful. “You can’t copyright facts,” Jesse Dwyer, Perplexity’s Chief Communications Officer, said in a statement to CNN.
The lawsuit also lays out a more personal turning point between the two companies. It says Perplexity and CNN were in negotiations last year about a deal that would have made paywalled CNN content available to Perplexity’s paid subscribers. The deal allegedly fell through. but Perplexity continued using CNN’s name and content in its products. despite warnings from the TV network’s legal team. Perplexity did not respond, the lawsuit says.
Taken together. CNN’s complaint describes a relationship that moved from talks to dispute—and then to litigation over how an AI search tool handles copyrighted reporting. paywalls. and even attribution when the system gets something wrong. The fight now heads into the courts. where what counts as permissible use of information is likely to be argued with less room for negotiation than the timeline suggests.
CNN Perplexity copyright infringement AI search journalism scraped content paywalled articles trademark Jesse Dwyer
17,000 is nothing now, everyone just copies everything anyway.
So CNN is suing them because the AI summarized? That seems kinda like fighting a vending machine. Also paywalled stuff in the answers?? How would it even get past that, unless CNNs own site leaks it lol.
I read somewhere that Perplexity is basically just stealing headlines and sticking them back. But the article also says trademark?? Isn’t trademark like logos and stuff, not “hallucinated content”? Confusing. Either way, if it’s attributing made-up info to CNN then that’s messed up.
Copyright facts?? I mean, you can copyright a story, sure, but I feel like they’re mad the AI is showing what people want instead of making them click 40 times. Also CNN saying “human beings” like that automatically makes it true. Half the time I still see incorrect stuff from CNN too so maybe the suit is just about money.