Social media big Reddit is suing Perplexity AI and three different corporations over alleged “industrial-scale” scraping of posts from its web site.
Perplexity – a San Francisco-based startup with its personal chatbot and “reply engine” – has allegedly skirted Reddit’s knowledge protections to swipe posts from the location for its personal use, in keeping with the lawsuit filed Wednesday in New York federal court docket.
In distinction, corporations together with Google and OpenAI have signed offers with Reddit, different social media corporations and information retailers, which offer content material used to coach AI chatbots.
Reddit is in search of unspecified damages within the new swimsuit, accusing the defendants of unfair competitors and enrichment, in addition to breaking US copyright legal guidelines.
The corporate filed an analogous grievance towards Anthropic in June.
This time round, as a substitute of simply suing Perplexity, Reddit is taking goal on the smaller companions it depends on to scrape knowledge behind the scenes.
Together with Perplexity, the brand new swimsuit names Oxylabs UAB, AWMProxy and SerpApi – which Reddit described as “a Lithuanian knowledge scraper, a former Russian botnet, and a Texas firm that publicly advertises its shady circumvention ways,” respectively.
These knowledge scrapers “masks their identities, disguise their places, and disguise their internet scrapers to steal Reddit content material from Google Search,” Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief authorized officer, advised The Put up in a press release.
“Perplexity is a prepared buyer of a minimum of one in all these scrapers, selecting to purchase stolen knowledge slightly than enter right into a lawful settlement with Reddit itself.”
Perplexity has denied the allegations and accused Reddit of “extortion.” It didn’t instantly reply to The Put up’s request for remark.
A spokesperson for SerpApi additionally denied the claims within the swimsuit, including that the corporate “stands firmly behind its enterprise mannequin and conduct.”
Denas Grybauskas, chief governance and technique officer at Oxylabs, advised The Put up in a press release that Oxylabs “is not going to hesitate to defend itself towards these allegations.”
“Oxylabs has all the time been and can proceed to be a pioneer and business chief in public knowledge assortment.”
AWMProxy couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.
Reddit boasts greater than 100,000 “subreddit” communities on its web site, the place customers debate and focus on all the things from sports activities and politics to video video games and TV exhibits.
Researchers have stated Reddit’s trove of person responses can assist prepare AI chatbots to generate extra human-like responses.
Within the swimsuit, Reddit stated posts from customers on its web site had turn into probably the most ceaselessly cited supply for AI-generated solutions throughout Perplexity.
Reddit stated it despatched Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter – however afterwards, the AI platform’s use of its content material tripled “forty-fold,” in keeping with the lawsuit.
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