BBC Threatens Legal Action Against Perplexity for Copyright Infringement
The BBC threatened legal action against Perplexity, alleging the AI startup used its content without permission to train its default model and reproduces significant portions of articles, harming the broadcaster's traffic and reputation. Perplexity rejected the claims as manipulative and denied any copyright violation.
What happened
The BBC sent a letter to Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity, accusing the AI company of using BBC content without licence to train its default AI model. The letter, disclosed by the Financial Times, demands that Perplexity stop using BBC content, delete all copies used for training, and submit a financial compensation proposal for the alleged misuse of copyright.
The BBC claims that Perplexity reproduces significant portions of its content verbatim, reducing users' need to visit BBC's website directly. The broadcaster also asserts that 17% of Perplexity's answers based on BBC content contain significant errors or lack context, potentially damaging the organisation's reputation and credibility.
Perplexity rejected the allegations, characterizing them as 'manipulative and opportunistic' and arguing that BBC has a 'fundamental misunderstanding of technology, the internet and copyright law.' Perplexity claims BBC is attempting to protect Google's unlawful monopoly.
Reported impact
The BBC reports that Perplexity's reproduction of its content reduces user traffic to its website, as the AI system provides answers directly without directing users to BBC sources.
According to BBC, 17% of Perplexity answers based on BBC content contain significant errors or missing context, which may harm the broadcaster's reputation and credibility.
Index analysis
This dispute reflects broader tension between publishers and AI companies over training data use. In October, Dow Jones submitted a lawsuit accusing Perplexity of 'massive scraping' of content, and the New York Times sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding Perplexity stop scraping its content.
Publishers including Financial Times, Axel Springer, Hearst and News Corporation have signed content licensing agreements with OpenAI. Reuters has signed an agreement with Meta, and the Daily Mail's parent company has signed an agreement with ProRata.ai.
Governance controls
In October, the BBC registered copyrights for its news website content in the US, entitling it to 'statutory damages in connection with unauthorised use' of these copyright-protected works.
The BBC's legal action comes weeks after BBC and Sky management criticized a UK government proposal that would permit AI companies to use copyright-protected works without explicit permission.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.