BBC Threatens to Sue Perplexity, Alleging ‘Verbatim’ Reproduction of Its Content

THE BBC threatens to continue the perplexity of the AI ​​search engine for an unauthorized use of its content, alleging the artificial intelligence The company generates the “motorized” BBC equipment.

In a letter to the CEO of perplexity Aravind Srinivas, as published by Financial time Friday, the BBC alleys that the perplexity default AI model was “formed using BBC content”. The BBC said that it would require an injunction unless the perplexity continues to scrape the content of the BBC, delete all BBC documents and to subject a “financial compensation proposal”.

The BBC refused to comment, but said that the FT reports were correct.

In a statement to the FT, Perplexity said that BBC’s assertions are “manipulative and opportunistic” and that the radiudiffusion giant does not fundamentally understand how technology, internet law or intellectual property work. Perplexity also alleged that the threat of dispute shows “how far the BBC is willing to preserve Google’s illegal monopoly for its own interest”.

An American judge judged last year that Google violated the antitrust law To strengthen his research domination.

From Perplexity is an online search engine built above a Great language modelHe can answer almost all the questions asked. This means that he needs good quality information to give users satisfactory answers. The BBC alleges that perplexity generates answers constructed on the content of the BBC, this reduces the need for readers to go directly to the BBC.

It is also feared that AI companies do not use its journalism correctly and impartially, which could harm its reputation. The BBC alleys that 17% of the responses in search of perplexity had major problems, and “the most common problems were the factual inaccuracies, the supply and the missing context”.

The perplexity did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

Although this is the first time that the BBC has been after an AI company, it is not the first time that Perplexity has encountered problems with publishers. Points of sale that are currently pursuing or threatening perplexity for copyright violations include The Wall Street Journal With the New York Post, Forbes And The New York Times. A survey of Cable Last year, perplexity had found ways to get around the blocks and scratch its content.

In the middle of these complaints, Perplexity has launched an income sharing program with publishers Last year, which includes Fortune, Time, The Texas Tribute and Der Spiegel.

Publishers become very defensive of their content, AI companies seeing painful assessments on the context of increasingly narrow margins in the media. OPENAI, the creator of Catcurrently has an evaluation of $ 300 billion and The perplexity assessment has also climbed $ 14 billion. Perplexity investors Include SoftBank, Nvidia and Amazon and the owner of Washington Post, Jeff Bezos. It was then that journalism had a hard time online, with Advertising dollars being siphoned by Google and the attention moving towards Social media applications. Since 2005, 2,900 local newspapers have closed in the United States, according to a study of Northwest University.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company in April, filed a complaint against Openai, alleging that it has violated Ziff Davis Copyrights in the training and exploitation of its AI systems.)