Photo/Illutration Perplexity AI Inc. reportedly accessed more than 100,000 articles on the Yomiuri Shimbun Online's website between February and June. (Ikuro Aiba)

The Yomiuri Shimbun is pursuing legal action against Perplexity AI Inc.’s generative artificial intelligence search service, citing copyright infringement over the U.S. startup’s unauthorized use of its articles. 

The lawsuit, filed with the Tokyo District Court on Aug. 7, is demanding that the company stop reproduction of articles, delete existing ones and pay roughly 2.17 billion yen ($14.78 million) in damages.

This is the first legal action a major domestic media outlet has taken against an AI company over unauthorized use of copyrighted materials, which include newspaper articles and images.

Specifically, the lawsuit was filed by the newspaper’s three headquarters in Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka that operate as separate companies under Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings.

According to the complaint, Perplexity’s service combines a conventional search engine with generative AI. When users input questions, the service searches for relevant information online and provides AI-generated answers based on what it finds.

The three plaintiffs argue that Perplexity violates the “right of reproduction” under the Copyright Law by reproducing articles and images from the newspaper’s digital edition Yomiuri Shimbun Online in the process of generating these answers. 

The plaintiffs also contend that spawning text and images similar to the contents of original articles for unspecified users infringes on the “right to transmit to the public” stipulated by the Copyright Law.

The Yomiuri Shimbun’s analysis of its company server logs show that Perplexity accessed information on 119,467 digital edition articles between February and June.

The plaintiffs assert that this practice of taking a “free ride” on the articles created with considerable effort and expense harms their business interests.

A statement from Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings’ public relations office said the unauthorized summarization and provision of articles via generative AI has led to “zero-click searches,” where users no longer visit the original source websites.

“This negatively impacts accurate reporting backed by journalistic investigation and could shake the very foundations of democracy,” the statement said.

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