Following Yomiuri, Asahi and Nikkei File Lawsuits
"If Left Unchecked, the Foundation of News Organizations Will Be Undermined"
Major Japanese newspapers are filing lawsuits against the U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) startup Perplexity, alleging that the company has used their articles without permission.
On August 26, Asahi Shimbun and Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) announced on their websites that they have filed lawsuits against Perplexity, claiming the company collected and used their articles without authorization during its AI search process. They are seeking an injunction against copyright infringement and damages of 2.2 billion yen (approximately 20.8 billion won) each.
In their complaints, Asahi Shimbun and Nikkei asserted that Perplexity, which provides search services powered by AI, copied articles from their servers and stored them on servers under its control. They further stated that Perplexity repeatedly provided sentences from these articles to users of its search service based on this information.
The two newspapers pointed out that they had implemented technical measures to prevent unauthorized use of their articles, but Perplexity ignored these measures and continued to use the articles.
They also argued that by quoting their articles while providing information that differed from the actual content, Perplexity damaged the newspapers' social credibility and infringed on their business interests.
Earlier this month, Yomiuri Shimbun also filed a lawsuit against Perplexity, demanding 2.168 billion yen (approximately 20.5 billion won) in damages for the unauthorized use of its online articles.
Perplexity is a startup known for its AI-based search engine, which is seen as a competitor to Google, the world's largest search engine company. It provides AI search services that answer user questions by utilizing web-based information.
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