Britannica, Merriam-Webster sue Perplexity over copyright infringement

Perplexity, the artificial intelligence-based search engine, is facing a lawsuit from Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster in a federal court in New York. The case, filed on September 10, alleges that the company copied and misused material from the publishers’ websites.

Allegations of copying and misrepresentation

The complaint states that Perplexity’s platform has been scraping articles and definitions without permission and then presenting them to users as its own. The publishers also claim the startup used their brand names in misleading ways, creating the impression that the results originated from Britannica or Merriam-Webster.