CNN Sues Perplexity Over AI-Generated Content Copying

CNN filed a lawsuit against Perplexity in New York court on May 28, 2026, alleging the AI startup's tools generate verbatim copies of CNN's copyrighted work and bypass its paywall. The companies had entered a content deal in October 2025 but scrapped it in November 2025 after failing to agree on usage limits. Perplexity faces similar copyright suits from The New York Times, News Corp, Encyclopedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster, Amazon, and Reddit.

CNN lawsuit allegations

• ▪CNN alleges that Perplexity's AI tools generate verbatim copies of CNN's work
• ▪CNN is seeking damages and a permanent block on Perplexity's allegedly unlawful conduct
• ▪CNN accuses Perplexity's AI search tool of producing substantial verbatim portions of CNN's article titled 'What's next for Minneapolis? A shaky promise, mounting tensions and the fight for control' by simply prompting the tool with the article's title.
• ▪CNN alleges that Perplexity provides users with information locked behind CNN's subscription
• ▪CNN filed a lawsuit against Perplexity in a New York court on May 28, 2026

Perplexity AI scraping practices

• ▪CNN's lawsuit claims that human beings report, research, write, edit, and create the content that Perplexity takes without permission or compensation
• ▪CNN alleges that Perplexity ignored CNN's efforts to recognize or block Perplexity's unidentified crawlers from scraping CNN's content

Failed content licensing deal

• ▪CNN scrapped the agreement with Perplexity in November 2025
• ▪CNN's deal with Perplexity did not lead to a final agreement due to the inability to agree on multiple issues, including limits on Perplexity's use of CNN content in its answers to users
• ▪CNN and Perplexity entered a deal in October 2025 to offer CNN's content through Perplexity's Comet Plus subscription
• ▪CNN wrote a letter to Perplexity demanding that Perplexity stop using CNN's content and trademarks without permission

Industry-wide copyright litigation

• ▪Encyclopedia Britannica is suing Perplexity for copyright infringement
• ▪News Corp, The Wall Street Journal's parent company, is suing Perplexity for copyright infringement
• ▪The New York Times is suing Perplexity for copyright infringement

Perplexity response

• ▪Perplexity spokesperson Jesse Dwyer stated that you can't copyright facts
• ▪Perplexity offers an AI answer engine along with the AI browser Comet

Perspective of Perplexity

• ▪Perplexity spokesperson Jesse Dwyer stated that you can't copyright facts