Forbes threatens legal action against Perplexity

Forbes sent a letter to the CEO of AI search startup Perplexity accusing the company of stealing text and images in a “willful infringement” of Forbes’ copyright rights, reports Sarah Fischer of Axios.

Fischer reports, “The letter, dated last Thursday, demands that Perplexity remove the misleading source articles, reimburse Forbes for all advertising revenues Perplexity earned via the infringement, and provide “satisfactory evidence and written assurances” that it has removed the infringing articles.

“It also demanded that Perplexity provide ‘written representations and assurances’ confirming that it won’t use any of Forbes’ intellectual property or content to generate and publish AI chatbot articles and that it won’t infringe on Forbes copyrights in the future.

“Forbes said ‘it looks forward to a reply’ to its letter within 10 days of receipt. It threatened to reserve ‘all of its rights to take any action it deems necessary to protect its rights.'”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.