Asahi and Nikkei File Copyright Lawsuit Against U.S. AI Firm

Tokyo, Aug. 26 (Jiji Press)--Japanese newspaper publishers Asahi Shimbun Co. and Nikkei Inc. have jointly filed a lawsuit against U.S. generative artificial intelligence company Perplexity AI Inc., alleging copyright infringement of their articles.

The lawsuit, submitted to the Tokyo District Court, seeks to prevent the U.S. startup from reproducing their articles, demands the deletion of stored article content, and requests 2.2 billion yen in damages for each plaintiff.

Asahi and Nikkei have described Perplexity's actions as 'large-scale, ongoing free riding on article content.'

The companies stated that Perplexity operates a service that generates answers to user queries by utilizing information sourced from the internet in its generative AI systems.

According to the plaintiffs, Perplexity copied and stored the news companies' article content without permission, using it from at least June 2024.