The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has issued a legal threat to Perplexity, an AI-powered search startup, demanding that it cease using BBC content to train its AI models.
In a letter addressed to Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, the BBC accused the company of scraping its online material without consent and warned of possible legal consequences if its demands were not met.
Specifically, the BBC is asking for the deletion of all copies of its content used for training purposes, an end to the practice, and a proposal for financial compensation. Failure to comply, it says, could lead to an injunction.
This escalation places Perplexity at the centre of a deepening rift between traditional media outlets and tech companies leveraging journalistic content to power artificial intelligence systems.
“The BBC’s letter outlines a potential injunction unless Perplexity halts its content scraping activities, purges existing data from its models, and presents a proposal for financial compensation,” reported Financial Times, which had access to the communication.
Perplexity’s reaction was quick as it said in a statement also quoted by FT, “The BBC’s claims are manipulative and opportunistic,” adding that the broadcaster “has a fundamental misunderstanding of technology, the internet and intellectual property law.”
This isn’t the first time Perplexity has drawn the ire of publishers. In October 2024, The New York Times served the company with a cease-and-desist notice over similar allegations. The paper demanded a full stop to the use of its articles in AI training and sought answers on how Perplexity bypassed anti-scraping mechanisms.
Other major publishers such as Forbes, Wired, and Axel Springer have had similar complaints. While Perplexity insists it is indexing publicly accessible content rather than scraping it for training, companies are not convinced.
To manage the case, Perplexity launched a Publishers Program in mid-2024, offering revenue-sharing arrangements to selected media outlets.
Among the early participants are TIME, Der Spiegel, The Texas Tribune, and Fortune. These partners receive a share of ad revenue whenever their content appears in responses generated by the platform.
We don’t know yet if the BBC was ever approached to join the scheme—or declined.
The broadcaster’s demand is a defensive legal move which stresses the need for a transparent and enforceable licensing structure for how AI firms use journalistic content.
Perplexity, which is backed by high-profile investors including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, continues to defend its operations. The company maintains it is not infringing on intellectual property rights and blames the issue on misinterpretations of how its system works.
