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The BBC has threatened legal action against the AI startup Perplexity, accusing the company of “content scraping”. Preplexity is accused of unauthorized use of the broadcaster’s material to train its AI models. This is similar to the recent legal action Disney and Universal took against Midjourney.
According to reports, the BBC has sent a letter to Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, demanding that the AI firm cease scraping its content. BBC has directed him to delete any existing copies used to train its AI systems and provide “a proposal for financial compensation” for the alleged misuse of its intellectual property. The BBC has indicated it may seek an injunction if these demands are not met.
The broadcaster claims that parts of its content have been reproduced verbatim by Perplexity. And there’s no way to deny it because the links to the BBC website have appeared in Perplexity’s search results. The BBC has also expressed concerns that Perplexity’s use of its content, particularly with reported inaccuracies.
This could potentially damage its reputation for impartial journalism and erode public trust. A BBC study found that a significant percentage of Perplexity’s responses using BBC sources contained inaccuracies or missing context.
Perplexity, for its part, has called the BBC’s claims “manipulative and opportunistic”. They believe that the broadcaster has “a fundamental misunderstanding of technology, the internet and intellectual property law.”
Perplexity maintains that it does not build or train foundational models but rather provides an interface for users to access models from various providers. These providers include OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, with its own system based on Meta’s Llama.
This is not the first time Perplexity has faced such accusations. Other media organizations, including Forbes, Wired, and The New York Times, have also accused the startup of plagiarizing their content or sending cease and desist notices. In response to industry backlash, Perplexity has launched a revenue-sharing program with some news publishers.
The BBC’s threat of legal action highlights the growing tensions and complexities surrounding content ownership and fair use in the age of generative AI. The outcome of this and similar disputes could set important precedents for intellectual property rights and the future of journalism in an AI-driven landscape.
