CNN sues Perplexity for scraping 17,000+ articles and bypassing its paywall

CNN filed suit on Thursday in U.S. District Court alleging Perplexity AI scraped over 17,000 articles and generates verbatim reproductions that bypass CNN's paywall, unlawfully distributing copyrighted content. The lawsuit joins The New York Times' December 2025 action against the AI search startup, marking intensifying copyright disputes as media companies pursue litigation over content used to power real-time AI responses.