CNN sued Perplexity on May 28 in New York federal court, accusing the AI company of copying more than 17,000 CNN stories, videos, and images without permission to power its AI search tools and distribute near-identical content to users [1, 2, 3, 4]. The lawsuit claims Perplexity scraped CNN’s content, including paywalled articles, despite CNN’s efforts to block automated access [1, 3, 4]. CNN says Perplexity reproduced "verbatim copies" of articles in responses to user queries [1, 3].
Negotiations took place in late 2025 for a licensing deal to allow some CNN content on Perplexity’s Comet Plus subscription, but the talks collapsed in November due to disagreements over content usage [1, 3]. CNN alleges Perplexity ignored cease-and-desist warnings and continued using CNN content and trademarks without authorization [1, 3].
CNN called Perplexity a company valued at tens of billions of dollars and said it should not be permitted to steal from original content creators it exploits [2, 3, 4]. A CNN spokesperson said, "The public rely on high quality news journalism reported by human beings to understand their world, which is frequently dangerous and expensive to produce. Commercial operators can and must pay to make use of it." [3]
Perplexity responded through spokesperson Jesse Dwyer, stating, "You can’t copyright facts," repeating this response in English and Chinese [1, 2, 3, 4].
Perplexity currently faces similar copyright suits from publishers including The New York Times, Reddit, Merriam-Webster, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Dow Jones [1, 2, 3, 4]. CNN is seeking monetary damages and a permanent injunction against Perplexity’s use of its intellectual property [1, 2, 4].
