Dictionaries sue Perplexity AI for using their definitions without permission

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Perplexity AI is being sued by Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster, who claim the company illegally copied content from their websites.

A new lawsuit filed on September 10th claims that Perplexity is violating copyright and trademark laws by using content from Britannica and Merriam-Webster in its search results.

According to Britannica, Perplexity’s AI system is unfairly benefiting by directly copying summaries from their articles. This is reducing traffic to Britannica’s website, which impacts their subscription and advertising income. Britannica also claims Perplexity falsely presented AI-created inaccuracies as if they came from Britannica, potentially damaging their reputation.

I’ve been hearing a lot about Perplexity, and they’re calling themselves this new kind of ‘answer engine.’ But honestly, it turns out a lot of their answers are just straight from Britannica! Jorge Cauz, the CEO of Britannica, actually pointed this out in a recent statement – it seems like Perplexity is leaning heavily on our content.

Today’s actions show our commitment to protecting our information and ideas. This allows us to keep creating new and improved digital learning resources that help students succeed, support teachers, and engage learners of all ages.

Dictionaries accuse Perplexity of copying content

Perplexity, launched in 2022, is an AI tool designed to help people find information and satisfy their curiosity. It works by quickly summarizing data from across the web, offering a different approach to searching compared to Google.

Publishers claim Perplexity’s summaries are created using content taken from other websites without authorization. Britannica’s legal team specifically argues that Perplexity copied and reused their content, including directly lifting definitions from their dictionary, without getting permission.

So, I just heard about another lawsuit hitting the AI world. It’s only been a few weeks since Anthropic had to cough up $1.5 billion because their Claude chatbot was trained on books it shouldn’t have been using – basically, copyrighted stuff. It really shows you that a lot of AI companies are getting sued over copyright issues right now, and it feels like this is just the beginning of a big wave of legal trouble for them.

Perplexity isn’t new to legal challenges. Last year, Dow Jones – the company behind The Wall Street Journal and New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch – sued the startup, claiming it unlawfully copied their content.

Even with ongoing legal challenges, Perplexity continues to gain attention, recently making a bold move by offering $34.5 billion to buy Google’s Chrome browser.

If both Britannica and Merriam-Webster win their cases, it could lead to expensive rules for how AI companies use and compensate owners of copyrighted content.

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2025-09-15 18:51