Encyclopedia Britannica Suing AI for Copyright Theft...Again
On September 10, 2024, Encyclopedia Britannica, the grandpa of encyclopedias, teamed up with its feisty sidekick Merriam-Webster to sue Perplexity AI in New York federal court. The charge? Perplexityâs AI âanswer engineâ allegedly swiped their website content and plagiarized word-for-word definitions â yes, literal copy-pasting front-row seats to spa services for stolen internet traffic. Backed by Jeff Bezosâs cash, Perplexity is already in court wrestling News Corp, Forbes, and the BBC over plagiarism accusations and âstealth crawlingâ â basically sneaking past crawler blockers like a nosy ex digging through your browser history. Meanwhile, poor Time and LA Times try to stay friends by cash-sharing, while World History Encyclopedia launched a Perplexity-powered chatbot in a desperate bid for AI friendship. The century-old Wikipedia-killers might want to check if their AI reads the fine print before stealing content with trademarked names slapped on incomplete hallucinations.
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Perplexity AIâs great crime isnât inventing answers, itâs copying Britannicaâs homework, slapping their name on half-baked definitions and hoping Bezos will bail them out before the judge starts asking questions.
If attention is the new currency, Perplexityâs plagiarizing Britannica must be printing money faster than Bezos counts it in his vault.
Calling Perplexity a âbullshit machineâ is polite â itâs more like the AI version of your cousin who steals your jokes but forgets to credit you at family dinners.
Source: Theverge | Published: 9/12/2025 | Author: Elissa Welle
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