**A week after Anthropic raised a First Amendment defense in response to Daniel Benjamin Gilbert’s copyright suit, Perplexity has done the same in the suit filed against it by Reddit. **
Elon Musk, Tesla, and Warner Brothers Discovery had already raised a First Amendment defense back in March 2026. To my knowledge, Musk was the first to do so, somewhat fitting for the self-avowed “free-speech absolutist.”
As I said in a prior post, in terms of defenses, it’s routine for defendants to list all possible relevant defenses so they do not waive them. But, as the plaintiffs in some of these cases continue to assert broad copyright claims, it’s no surprise that AI companies are starting to formally raise the First Amendment as a defense.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the defense will get litigated. But it may.
And we are likely to see every Answer by AI companies starting to include it as a standard part of what typically is a laundry list of defenses.