BBC Threatens Legal Action Against Perplexity Over Content Use – FT
BBC demands that AI startup Perplexity halt content scraping, erase scraped material, and offer payment or risk an injunction over unauthorized use.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) warned AI search company Perplexity that it will face legal action unless it immediately stops using its content without permission, the Financial Times reported on June 20. The broadcaster wants Perplexity to delete any BBC material already used to train its AI models and pay compensation for using copyrighted content.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas received a formal letter demanding that the company stop all automated scraping of BBC articles and broadcast transcripts.
The BBC research found that 17% of AI responses using BBC content contained factual errors. The broadcaster said Perplexity sometimes reproduced BBC articles word-for-word, which damaged the BBC's reputation and hurt public trust in its journalism.
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Perplexity rejected the accusations, calling the BBC's claims “manipulative and opportunistic.” The company said the BBC “has a fundamental misunderstanding of technology, the internet and intellectual property law.” Perplexity stated it does not train its core models directly on web content and accused the BBC of trying to protect Google's search dominance.
The dispute comes as Perplexity has grown to 30 million users and recently launched a revenue-sharing program with some publishers.
Other major publishers have sent similar warnings to Perplexity. Forbes and Wired previously demanded that the company stop using their content. The New York Times sent a cease-and-desist letter in October 2024. Perplexity signed revenue-sharing deals with Time and Der Spiegel but remains in disputes with News Corp publications.
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The BBC started registering its content archives with the U.S. Copyright Office to strengthen its legal position for future enforcement actions. The publicly funded broadcaster is currently renegotiating its funding charter with the UK government.
The outcome of this legal dispute could influence how news organizations and AI companies negotiate content access agreements in the future.
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