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AI's "Ask Forgiveness Not Permission" Bugbear Hits the Courts Again

ended 08. December 2025

The New York Times has escalated its legal battle against Perplexity AI, filing a copyright infringement lawsuit in New York federal court on Friday. The suit alleges the AI "answer engine" produces responses that are "verbatim or substantially similar copies" of NYT content, generating revenue whilst deliberately bypassing technical protections like robots.txt files that websites use to control crawler access.

This follows similar action from the Chicago Tribune on Thursday, and comes after repeated cease-and-desist notices to Perplexity throughout 2024. The AI startup's defence? Comparing itself to radio and television, claiming "publishers have been suing new tech companies for a hundred years" and "fortunately it's never worked."

Perplexity found itself facing multiple lawsuits after Forbes and Wired exposed the startup's practice of bypassing website paywalls to generate AI summaries—and occasionally verbatim copies—of protected content. The NYT's lawsuit makes identical claims, alleging Perplexity's crawlers "have intentionally ignored or evaded technical content protection measures," including robots.txt files that explicitly indicate which parts of a website should remain off-limits to automated scrapers.

AI search startup Perplexity has been actively disguising its web crawlers to bypass website access restrictions, according to Cloudflare's technical analysis. When Perplexity's bots encounter blocks, Cloudflare alleges the company masks their identity “in an attempt to circumvent the website's preferences”, essentially sneaking through the back door after being told to use the front entrance doesn't grant access.

We want your views:

  • Is Perplexity's comparison to radio and television intellectually honest? Those mediums did not reproduce verbatim content acquired without permission?
  • If robots.txt files (the technical "no entry" signs of the web) carry no legal weight, what's left of website owners' ability to control their own content?
  • Should AI companies that actively disguise their crawlers to bypass access restrictions face different legal consequences than those who simply ignore robots.txt?
  • Where's the line between "learning from publicly available content" and "commercial exploitation of paywalled professional work"?
  • Is Perplexity's revenue-sharing programme, launched after Forbes and Wired exposed the scraping, genuine collaboration or damage control by press release?

     

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Colette Mason
AI Ethics Consultant at Clever Clogs AI
This isn't just about the NYT case. It's also playing out in the court of public opinion, formed by every business investing in content marketing and SEO.

You've spent months writing content that ranks and brings leads. AI scrapers now bypass your site, serving summaries to clients who never click through. Your content becomes free training data whilst someone else monetises your audience, and rips off your ideas to become throwaway "digital products" and "bot training".

Perplexity's radio comparison is ludicrous. Radio didn't steal articles and read them out verbatim. Disguising crawlers when blocked isn't disruption, it's IP theft with VC backing.

If AI companies can't profit without hoovering up your content, you're watching your SEO investment get strip-mined by platforms selling your gold for themselves.

Revenue-sharing launched after getting caught isn't collaboration. It's damage control. This lawsuit tests whether 'ask forgiveness later' works when victims afford lawyers.
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Kate Underwood
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
If AI can pinch the words that built your business, what’s left to call your own?. The New York Times squaring up to Perplexity isn’t just headline drama; it’s a reality check for every small business with a website. When tech giants help themselves to your content, the big players lose ad revenue. The rest of us? We lose the audience we’ve spent years building. A robots.txt file is basically a polite “keep out” sign, not a challenge to see who can sneak in the back door. If that stops meaning anything, it’s open season on your hard work. And let’s be honest, calling it “learning” when you’re lifting someone else’s graft for profit is a bit rich. The Times can lawyer up. Small businesses? We’ve got a kettle, a laptop, and a to-do list. Fair use shouldn’t mean free labour. Hands off our content.
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Rohit Parmar-Mistry
Founder at Pattrn Data
It is hard to pick a side between two bullies. Let’s be honest: legacy media giants like the NYT aren't exactly the 'good guys.' They’ve spent years crushing local journalism, churning out clickbait, and aggregating stories from smaller agencies to fuel their own ad revenue.

But Perplexity isn't Robin Hood, it’s just a different kind of thief. And that’s the trap for SMEs.

If we cheer for Perplexity because we hate paywalls, we’re cutting our own throats. If robots.txt becomes meaningless, it isn't just the NYT that loses protection, it’s every specialist small business and independent expert. We become unpaid content generators for a tech giant that resells our hard work back to us.

The music industry eventually accepted streaming, but Spotify actually pays for rights. Perplexity just takes. We need a 'Spotify for News' model where access is easier but creators, big and small, get paid. Right now, we just have two monopolies fighting over who gets to exploit us.
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Patricia McGirr
Founder at Repossession Rescue Network
AI is looting publishing and we’re celebrating systemic theft as if it’s innovation. Perplexity is slipping past the bouncers, lifting the goods and selling them back to audiences others have carefully cultivated. If robots.txt is now optional, every business investing in SEO and content is effectively leaving its IP on the doorstep for someone else to monetise. This case isn’t about the New York Times protecting its patch. It’s every SME watching their work scraped, summarised and fed back to clients who never reach their site. If courts don’t draw a line, AI firms will keep acting like the internet is a free buffet and plagiarism is the ‘all-you-can-eat’ special. Content creators should be on their guard as their store cupboard is wide open for a raid and no one’s policing it.