In a significant escalation of tensions between social media platforms and AI companies, Reddit has initiated a copyright infringement lawsuit against Perplexity AI, accusing the San Francisco-based startup of illegally scraping its extensive database of user-generated content. Filed in a New York federal court on Wednesday, the lawsuit alleges that Perplexity and its associates harvested Reddit’s copyrighted material without permission to train their AI systems. This case is part of a growing trend of legal challenges regarding how AI firms collect and utilize online data.
In addition to Perplexity, Reddit also included three other entities in the lawsuit: Lithuanian data company Oxylabs, Texas-based SerpApi, and AWMProxy, which Reddit referred to as a “former Russian botnet.” The complaint claims these entities assisted Perplexity in concealing its scraping activities by masking identities, hiding locations, and impersonating regular users. Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief legal officer, characterized the situation as part of a larger industry crisis.
He stated, “AI companies are locked in an arms race for quality human content,” calling the situation an “industrial-scale data laundering economy.” Reddit alleges that Perplexity heavily relied on scraped content—often accessed indirectly via Google search results—to power its AI-driven “answer engine.” In response, Perplexity asserted that it has not yet been served with the lawsuit and defended its commitment to making information accessible. The company emphasized, “We will always fight vigorously for users’ rights to freely and fairly access public knowledge,” asserting its methods are “principled and responsible.” Oxylabs and SerpApi also rejected any allegations of wrongdoing, stating they have not been formally notified.
Denas Grybauskas, an Oxylabs executive, criticized Reddit for not engaging in direct communication, stating, “Reddit has made no attempt to speak with us directly,” and pledged to protect the firm’s “reputation as an industry leader in public data collection.” Sources from the Financial Times indicated that Reddit had previously addressed its concerns with Perplexity regarding the alleged scraping and had even proposed a paid data access partnership, which Perplexity’s founder Aravind Srinivas reportedly declined. Reddit also contacted Google, urging the tech giant to investigate whether Perplexity exploited its search engine to circumvent restrictions. The dispute underscores a broader legal and ethical challenge concerning AI data sourcing.
Since the rise of generative AI models, numerous lawsuits from authors, media organizations, and online communities have accused tech companies of using copyrighted material without permission or compensation. Ironically, Reddit itself has entered into lucrative data licensing agreements with Google and OpenAI, granting them legitimate access to its platform for AI training. However, the company contends that Perplexity and its partners employed evasive scraping methods to obtain similar data unlawfully.
This is not Reddit’s first confrontation with an AI developer; in June 2025, it sued Anthropic, claiming that the startup scraped Reddit over 100,000 times in a year—a claim Anthropic denied while pledging to “defend ourselves vigorously.” With this latest lawsuit, Reddit appears determined to reinforce its stance: AI companies must compensate for using the internet’s collective human knowledge.
