Reddit sues Perplexity for unauthorized data scraping used to train its AI system
Reddit has filed a lawsuit against Perplexity and three data-scraping companies, accusing them of harvesting Reddit content without authorization to train AI systems. The company claims the defendants bypassed its protections and accessed copyrighted material at scale. Reddit says it sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter last year, but the company allegedly increased its use of Reddit content fortyfold afterward.
The lawsuit argues that Perplexity depends on Reddit data to power its AI answer engine and that it collaborated with at least one of the scraping services without permission. Reddit seeks monetary damages and a court order preventing Perplexity from using its data in future training or products. The company highlights that its user-generated content is highly valuable and frequently appears in AI-generated answers.
Ironically, Reddit has previously licensed its data to Google and OpenAI under agreements to train their AI models, so it could be said that the company is mainly targeting those who are not yet paying for access. Perplexity denies the allegations and says it will defend itself in court. The case follows another ongoing lawsuit from just a few months ago, in which Reddit filed against Anthropic over similar issues.
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External links
- Reddit sues Perplexity for scraping data to train AI systemReuters
- Reddit Accuses ‘Data Scraper’ Companies of Stealing Its InformationThe New York Times
- Reddit sues Perplexity for allegedly ripping its content to feed AIThe Verge
- Reddit sues Perplexity, three other firms for stealing data by scraping Google search resultsSeeking Alpha
Comments
Reddit, as the sole owner of the all content of Reddit, is right to sue if it thinks its content has any value. But I fail to see how it could persuade any court of it.
"Ironically, Reddit has previously licensed its data to Google and OpenAI under agreements to train their AI models, so it could be said that the company is mainly targeting those who are not yet paying for access."
Where is the irony in that? Google and OpenAI have paid for the use of the data. Perplexity (and Anthropic¹) have not paid for the use of the data. So they are sued for unauthorized data scraping.
If you want your AI to not be stupid you DO NOT scrape data from Reddit.
Using Reddit for data other than tech support is stupid. This is why I do not use Google AI, and now I would not be using Perplexity either. All those "eat rocks" and "put glue on pizza" Google AI suggestions were taken from Reddit.