Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster sue Perplexity AI for copyright and trademark infringement

The AI web search company Perplexity is being hit by another lawsuit alleging copyright and trademark infringement, this time from Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster. Britannica, the centuries-old publisher that owns Merriam-Webster, sued

Perplexity in New York federal court on September 10th.

In the lawsuit, the companies allege that Perplexity’s “answer engine” scrapes their websites, steals their internet traffic, and plagiarizes their copyrighted material. Britannica also alleges trademark infringement when Perplexity attaches the two companies’ names to hallucinated or incomplete content. 

The word “plagiarize” illustrates the point of the lawsuit. The court document includes back-to-back screenshots that show Perplexity’s result is identical to Merriam-Webster’s definition. 

Perplexity positions itself as a Google Search competitor. It has been called a “bullshit machine” that steals and recreates original content without proper citations. The AI company is also accused of “stealth crawling” websites with crawler blockers, a practice used by other AI companies.  

Perplexity, backed by investors like Jeff Bezos, has tussled with other media outlets like Forbes, The New York Times, and the BBC. News Corp, the parent company of outlets like The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, sued Perplexity in October 2024.

Some media companies joined Perplexity’s ad revenue sharing program, including Time magazine and the Los Angeles Times. Another popular encyclopedia, World History Encyclopedia, joined Perplexity’s publisher program, and on September 8th, it launched a Perplexity-powered AI chatbot that allows users to sift through the encyclopedia’s database of sources and academic articles.