AI search engine Perplexity says it was working on revenue-sharing deals with publishers when Forbes staff accused it of plagiarizing Forbes' White Stork scoop
The Scoop — Perplexity, the AI search startup that recently came under fire from Forbes for allegedly misusing its content …
Semafor Reed Albergotti
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Discussion
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@miasato.2
Mia Sato
on threads
Out on the town having the time of my life with a bunch of f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶s̶ revenue sharing deals. They're all just out of frame, laughing too.
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@crumbler
Casey Newton
on threads
Who cares? ‘Working on deals’ doesn't give you a free pass to plagiarize other people's work. This company is ethically bankrupt
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@carnage4life
Dare Obasanjo
on x
I have no idea what's up with AI companies speed running the news coverage from “scrappy underdog” to “evil big tech” before they even get that big. We were going to pay you isn't an excuse for plagiarizing content. What seemed like an honest mistake now looks more deliberate. [i…
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@ericnewcomer
Eric Newcomer
on x
@ReedAlbergotti @semafor it doesn't feel like this is about our role as journalists in the traditional sense since it is about their story. reporters would fight with other reporters on twitter if they didn't get proper credit and the perplexity situation seems far more egregious…
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@jason_koebler
Jason Koebler
on x
“Perplexity generated more readers from the one Schmidt story it plagiarized from Forbes than it sent to Forbes from any and every post for the entire month of May. In AI nowadays, that trade gets you a billion-dollar valuation.” https://www.forbes.com/... [image]
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@ericnewcomer
Eric Newcomer
on x
@ReedAlbergotti @semafor i mean this whole idea that what we're going to be better at is extracting the valuable stuff from your work but still rely on you producing the underlying reporting is super disturbing. i would like to see perplexity and others produce novel valuable inf…
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@semafor
@semafor
on x
🟡 SCOOP: Perplexity, the AI search startup that recently came under fire from Forbes, was already planning revenue-sharing deals with publishers, @ReedAlbergotti reports. The deals would provide a framework to earn recurring income. https://www.semafor.com/...
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@johnpaczkowski
John Paczkowski
on x
Also, “reporting always gets ripped off” is, err, some rebuttal and, again, misses the point.
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@bcmerchant
Brian Merchant
on x
This whole saga is just wild and I hope every journalist out there is paying attention
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@johnpaczkowski
John Paczkowski
on x
Some head exploding irony here, given the Facebook armageddon for publishers
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@dmitry140
Dmitry Shevelenko
on x
More details on how Perplexity will be working closely with publishers to create healthy long-term incentive alignment. Thanks Reed for the in-depth perspective
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@jason
@jason
on x
Media companies need to lawyer up and file as a group against @perplexity_ai — which has been caught red handed. This is a $100m settlement and a serious injunction, and media/content companies need to pounce like @nytimes has with OpenAI Fight now, or lose your rights
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@reedalbergotti
Reed Albergotti
on x
interesting scoop: @perplexity_ai , even before it came under fire in the Forbes controversy, was planning an ad rev share program for publishers. In the past, getting ad revenue meant someone had to click on an article. Here, the substance of the article needs to match the
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@mattswider
Matt Swider
on x
This is 100% why you'll see more paywalled content: AI. Forbes' @JohnPaczkowski has been lighting up Perplexity AI CEO @AravSrinivas for stealing exclusive *paywalled* content. @Jason wrote an excellent piece about AI steamrolling publishers via ChatGPT. Publishers fell for it [i…
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@carnage4life
Dare Obasanjo
on x
This article is also a great example of the genre of “press release masquerading as news article” https://www.semafor.com/...
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@mohapatrahemant
Hemant Mohapatra
on x
The way the media is lashing out at @perplexity_ai, a 2yr old startup, is just yet another proof how the industry is losing its surefooted ways of controlling information and discourse.
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@johnpaczkowski
John Paczkowski
on x
Perplexity has now updated their forgery of our reporting to list us as the *third* citation after 2 reblogs of stories we broke, and to add an inline attribution to Forbes that, lol, points to Business Insider's reblog of our most recent work. [image]
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@youcaughtscott
@youcaughtscott
on x
Meta completely blocked all news in Canada cause they decided not to do this on a whim.
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@ericnewcomer
Eric Newcomer
on x
@semafor @ReedAlbergotti nihilism @ReedAlbergotti . media companies steal too much reporting so let's shrug our shoulders with AI. the information is sometimes successful when it scolds publications for not crediting it. what's different here? public shame is one of the few lever…
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@reedalbergotti
Reed Albergotti
on x
@EricNewcomer @semafor Also, how is “public shame” literally the very first step? Is our job as journalists just online mob justice now? What happened to nuance and intellectual curiosity?
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@dwhate
Dan Whateley
on x
Nothing captures the state of media in 2024 better than this tweet
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@johnpaczkowski
John Paczkowski
on x
When did Perplexity decide it was a media company?
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@reedalbergotti
Reed Albergotti
on x
@EricNewcomer @semafor I said clearly that perplexity should have credited them higher up. I just don't think the Forbs people had to go for the jugular like that. I think twitter brings out the worst in people sometimes. A civil conversation would get more done.
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@jason
@jason
on x
@JohnPaczkowski They didn't ask for permission and took a substantial amount? Have you run more tests on this? You should publish dozens of examples like the NYTimes did
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@can
@can
on x
I liked perplexity and recommended it so many people but this whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.
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@johnpaczkowski
John Paczkowski
on x
1. Lol. Nice story placement, Perplexity. 2. But it misses the point. Beyond attribution **The company took our paywalled work, without our permission, and competitively broadcast it across web, video, mobile — as though it were itself a media outlet.**
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@william_fitz
William Fitzgerald
on x
Reporters need to start making regular trips to Sacramento and DC to fight for their livelihoods.
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@mattswider
Matt Swider
on x
@campbell_brown What about small publishers? Are these deals only going to be for larger publishers (so far, that's been the case with ChatGPT)? Why has Perplexity stolen the content of Forbes and my site while charging $20/mo. Is it OK to have done so in the meantime? https://x.…
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@campbell_brown
Campbell Brown
on x
This seems like the right take - aligned incentives and a real potential ally for publishers: “Perplexity planning revenue-sharing deals with publishers”. https://www.semafor.com/...
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@sidfix
Sid Jayakumar
on x
@MohapatraHemant @perplexity_ai Imo irrelevant that theyre 2 years old. Theyre well funded, have some of the most well known advisors and investors and worth close to what the NYT is market cap wise. Cant hold tech startups to diff standards just because things move fast imo; reg…