Perplexity AI Faces Reddit Lawsuit After US District Judge Rejects Bid to Dismiss Data-Scraping Claims

Perplexity AI must continue defending a lawsuit brought by Reddit after a Manhattan federal judge rejected most of its attempt to dismiss claims that it unlawfully scraped data from the online discussion platform to train its AI-powered search engine.

US District Judge Paul Engelmayer ruled that Reddit could proceed with allegations that Perplexity and three data-scraping companies bypassed protective measures to obtain content for artificial intelligence training.

The judge also held that Reddit had legal standing to pursue claims over the alleged misuse of content posted by its users.

Perplexity argued that Reddit was attempting to control access to publicly available web pages that it did not own, using security measures it had not created, on behalf of users who had not authorised the action.

“We’re going to defend the open internet, and we’re going to win,” a Perplexity spokesperson said.

Reddit welcomed the ruling, saying it brought the company closer to holding companies accountable for bypassing its protections and profiting from its communities without permission.

The lawsuit is among a growing number of legal battles between content owners and technology companies over the alleged unauthorised use of copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence systems. Authors, music publishers and news organisations have also filed similar claims against AI companies.

Reddit has already licensed its content to companies including Google and OpenAI for AI training purposes. However, it alleges that Perplexity obtained Reddit data without authorisation through third-party scraping companies.

In its lawsuit, Reddit claimed that Lithuania-based Oxylabs, Russia-based AWMProxy and Texas-based SerpApi collected Reddit data from billions of search results without permission. The company alleged that Perplexity, which does not hold a licence to use Reddit content, worked with at least one of these companies to access the material.

SerpApi attorney Jeff Homrig of Weil Gotshal & Manges rejected Reddit’s claims, saying the company accessed publicly available search results rather than Reddit’s platform directly.

“Public information does not become protected because a platform wants to charge for it,” Homrig said.

Representatives for Oxylabs did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while AWMProxy could not be reached.

Reddit is seeking unspecified damages and an order preventing Perplexity from using its data. Perplexity has denied the allegations.

While Judge Engelmayer dismissed some of Reddit’s secondary claims, he allowed key allegations that Perplexity unlawfully scraped Reddit’s data and conspired with data-scraping companies to move forward.

The case, Reddit Inc v SerpApi LLC, is pending before the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

 
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