Dow Jones and New York Post press copyright case as Perplexity nears trial

Fact discovery closed on October 15, 2026, in Dow Jones & Company v. Perplexity AI (case 1:24-cv-07984) in the Southern District of New York, with expert discovery due by January 19, 2027 and both sides estimating a 10 to 14 day jury trial, as Perplexity seeks a funding round valuing it above $30 billion. Dow Jones and the New York Post sued Perplexity on October 21, 2024, alleging a "brazen scheme" of mass copying and later adding false designation of origin and trademark dilution claims, including an alleged instance where Perplexity's chatbot generated quotes never in a Wall Street Journal story about F-16 fighter jets headed to Ukraine and attributed them to the Journal. Perplexity, which said it replied to the publishers' July 2024 licensing letter the same day and cited revenue-sharing deals with Time, Fortune and Der Spiegel, failed in a 2025 motion arguing the Manhattan court lacked jurisdiction over the California company; Encyclopaedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster, Tribune Publishing and MediaNews Group have filed similar suits.

A copyright fight that started with scraped headlines two years ago is now heading to a jury, just as Perplexity tries to close a funding round that would value it above $30 billion. Fact discovery closed on October 15, 2026, in Dow Jones & Company v. Perplexity AI, the copyright and trademark case News Corp's Dow Jones and the New York Post filed against the AI search startup in the Southern District of New York. The case is numbered 1:24-cv-07984. Court filings reviewed by legal trade publications tracking the docket show it's now moving toward expert discovery, due by January 19, 2027: both sides are already estimating a trial of 10 to 14 days before a jury. The lawsuit that once looked like a routine scraping dispute has become, two years after it was filed, one of the more closely watched tests of whether an AI search engine can survive discovery without publishers proving it fabricates the news it claims to summarize. The case began on October 21, 2024, when Dow Jones and the New York Post sued Perplexity in Manhattan federal court, accusing it of what the complaint called a "brazen scheme" of mass copying. Dow Jones and the Post said they'd sent Perplexity a letter back in July 2024 offering to discuss a licensing deal and got no response before the suit landed. Perplexity disputed that account almost immediately. In a blog post, the company said it had replied to the July letter the same day it arrived, called the lawsuit's framing "misleading," and pointed to revenue-sharing deals it already had running with Time, Fortune and Der Spiegel. CEO Aravind Srinivas said he was surprised by the suit given the company's stated openness to talks. What makes this case different from the wave of other publisher suits against AI firms isn't the scraping allegation. It's what the publishers say Perplexity's chatbot does with the material once it has it. The complaint was later amended to add claims of false designation of origin and trademark dilution under federal trademark law. It alleges Perplexity's answers don't just summarize Journal and Post reporting: sometimes they invent details and attribute them to the outlets by name. The publishers point to an exchange involving a Wall Street Journal story about F-16 fighter jets headed to Ukraine, where Perplexity's chatbot allegedly generated quotes that never appeared in the actual article and presented them as the Journal's own reporting. Perplexity isn't fighting this alone in court. Dow Jones and the Post are part of a growing docket. Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster filed a similar copyright and trademark dilution suit against Perplexity in the same Manhattan court in September 2025, and Tribune Publishing and MediaNews Group, which includes the Chicago Tribune, brought their own copyright case. Perplexity has separately tried to get the Dow Jones suit tossed or moved: it argued, in a motion filed in early 2025, that the Manhattan court lacked jurisdiction over a California-based company. That motion didn't stop the case. It's now past fact discovery and headed toward a jury. Ninth Circuit Says Perplexity's Comet Can Shop on Amazon Again https://startupfortune.com/ninth-circuit-says-perplexitys-comet-can-shop-on-amazon-again/ The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a March injunction that had blocked Perplexity's Comet AI agent from shopping on Amazon, ruling that it's the user, not Perplexity, who legally accesses Amazon's platform. It's the first federal appeals ruling on whether AI agents can shop on third-party platforms without the platform's consent, and... - perplexity comet amazon shopping bot https://startupfortune.com/ninth-circuit-says-perplexitys-comet-can-shop-on-amazon-again/ - ai agent computer fraud and abuse https://startupfortune.com/ninth-circuit-says-perplexitys-comet-can-shop-on-amazon-again/ The timing is brutal for Perplexity None of this is slowing Perplexity's fundraising. Bloomberg and other outlets reported in August 2026 that Nvidia was in talks to invest in Perplexity at a valuation north of $30 billion. That's more than 50% above the roughly $20 billion valuation The Information reported the company had closed a year earlier. Perplexity's annualized revenue has climbed past $750 million, up from under $250 million at the start of the year, with growth partly driven by Perplexity Computer, an agent product aimed at automating computer-based tasks for professionals. The company trying to close a deal that would make it one of the most valuable AI startups in the world is, at the same time, a week away from the fact-discovery deadline in a case that accuses its flagship product of inventing quotes and putting them in a Pulitzer-winning newsroom's mouth. That's not a coincidence investors can ignore forever. Every AI search company selling itself as a replacement for the open web is making an implicit promise: trust what we tell you instead of clicking through. Discovery in this case exists specifically to test whether Perplexity can back that promise up with its own internal records, not just its marketing copy. Frankly, the F-16 example is the detail that should worry Perplexity's investors more than the scraping claims ever did. Scraping is a licensing problem, something a check can fix, and Perplexity has already written checks to Time and Fortune to prove it. A hallucinated quote attributed to the Wall Street Journal is a product problem. Product problems don't get solved by signing a revenue-sharing agreement. The case now heads toward expert discovery with that distinction sitting at its center, and a trial date that will arrive well before anyone forgets it. Also read: VCs are splitting AI funding rounds into tranches to inflate valuations https://startupfortune.com/vcs-are-splitting-ai-funding-rounds-into-tranches-to-inflate-valuations/ • 1X starts delivering its $20,000 Neo home robot, teleoperator and all https://startupfortune.com/1x-starts-delivering-its-20000-neo-home-robot-teleoperator-and-all/ • GitLab patches a maximum-severity flaw letting hackers run code without logging in https://startupfortune.com/gitlab-patches-a-maximum-severity-flaw-letting-hackers-run-code-without-logging-in/ This article is posted in AI News https://startupfortune.com/category/ai/ , check it out for more related stories. Join the discussion Open in the community → https://startupfortune.com/community/ Almost there. Sign in and your reply posts straight away.