In a recent exclusive report by The Wall Street Journal, it was revealed that The New York Times has issued a cease-and-desist letter to the AI research startup Perplexity, demanding that they halt access to and use of their content. This comes on the heels of a similar controversy involving OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, which faced legal action from The New York Times late last year over content usage disputes.

Publishers including Forbes and Condé Nast have also accused Perplexity of unauthorized content theft, claiming that their reporting has been improperly used to produce AI-generated results.

Founded two years ago with backing from tech mogul Jeff Bezos, Perplexity aims to challenge search engine giant Google. When users input questions or keywords, Perplexity utilizes AI technology to generate structured answers, citing sources and providing links.

According to a copy of the letter obtained by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, through its legal counsel, outlined that Perplexity has exploited their reporting to create AI-generated outputs, thereby violating copyright laws.

The letter asserts that Perplexity, along with its business partners, has unlawfully profited by misappropriating The New York Times’ carefully researched and professionally edited content without proper authorization.

In response, Perplexity’s CEO, Aravind Srinivas, stated, “We genuinely hope to collaborate with every publisher, including The New York Times. We have no intention of being adversarial with anyone.”

The Wall Street Journal’s analysis indicates that businesses are increasingly feeling the impact of AI technologies’ capacity to generate vast amounts of content. News organizations face potential risks such as the misuse or plagiarism of their reporting, which could harm their reputations and subsequently affect their advertising and subscription revenues.

OpenAI has already established partnerships with several media organizations, including News Corp, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, IAC (which owns Dotdash Meredith), and Axel Springer, the parent company of Politico. OpenAI is required to pay publishers when it utilizes their reporting.

The report emphasizes that search has become an especially contentious issue, as AI-generated search results from platforms like Google or Perplexity provide users with summarized outlines, eliminating the need to click through individual articles.

The New York Times previously filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft for intellectual property infringement late last year, though both companies have denied any wrongdoing.