Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun filed a lawsuit against Purplelexity, an artificial intelligence search service provider in the U.S. The allegation is that they are collecting and using articles without permission through AI search.
According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on Wednesday, the two companies announced that they have filed a lawsuit against Purple Lexy in the Tokyo District Court. They demanded a ban on copyright infringement and compensation of 2.2 billion yen each. The Yomiuri Shimbun filed a lawsuit against Purple Lexy, becoming the second Japanese media outlet to do so.
According to the complaint, PurpleLexity violated copyright laws by accessing Nikkei and Asahi’s servers to collect articles, and generating and providing summary articles.
In addition, it was revealed that the source of the summary was Nikkei or Asahi, damaging social trust. This corresponds to infringement of business interests due to violations of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act.
Nikkei said, “The unauthorized use of articles written with a lot of time and effort cannot be overlooked, and false information is also displayed,” adding, “We will protect sound reports that support the foundation of democracy by putting the brakes on lax copyright infringement.” Earlier this month, the Yomiuri Shimbun also filed a related complaint with the Tokyo District Court, claiming that Purple Lexity infringed on copying rights and public transmission rights under the copyright law by using its online articles without permission.
The newspaper argued in its complaint that the number of articles used by PerpLexity without permission reached 119,000 between February and June this year alone, which led to a decrease in advertising revenue as the number of visitors to the company’s Internet decreased.
The Yomiuri Shimbun said it demanded 2.168 billion yen in damages for Purple Lexity and that further investigation may increase the amount of damages.
In December last year, Dow Jones and the New York Post, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), also filed a lawsuit in New York seeking compensation for damages for copyright infringement.
Purple Lexity is a Generative AI based search service startup established in 2022, providing a service that answers questions based on the latest Internet information when users enter them.
Search through existing keywords provides users with highly relevant web pages. On the other hand, search through generative AI is a method of summarizing answers in writing based on various contents. A link to the cited page also appears, but there is no need to visit the site.
Asahi pointed out, “There are many cases where generative AI misinterprets and combines data and gives plausible false answers,” adding, “From the perspective of copyright protection, free rides of information are also frequent.”
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
