The BBC has threatened legal action against Perplexity, and has accused the AI startup of training its "default AI model" using BBC content. This makes the British broadcaster the latest news organisation to accuse the AI firm of content scraping.
The BBC, in a letter said that it may seek an injunction unless Perplexity stops scraping its content, deletes existing copies used to train its AI systems, and submits "a proposal for financial compensation" for the alleged misuse of its intellectual property.
The letter was sent to Perplexity chief Aravind Srinivas and which was seen by the Financial Times. The British national broadcaster says it has evidence that the US start-up’s “default AI model” was “trained using BBC content”.
This is the first time that the British broadcaster has sought to tackle AI companies over this matter. The move reflects growing concerns that its content — much of which is freely and easily available as a public sector broadcaster — is being widely ripped off.
Perplexity said the BBC’s claims were “manipulative and opportunistic” and that it had “a fundamental misunderstanding of technology, the internet and intellectual property law.
The legal threat comes weeks after Tim Davie, the director general of the BBC, and the boss of Sky both criticised proposals being considered by the government that could let tech companies use copyright-protected work without permission.
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