Perplexity and Getty Images Sign Licensing Deal

Perplexity, an AI search firm, has entered into a multi-year licensing agreement with Getty photos that permits it to use Getty photos in its AI-powered search and discovery tools. Following accusations of plagiarism and content scraping, the contract represents a significant change for the corporation and an attempt to build more official content partnerships.

This is to say that Perplexity will “be making improvements to how it displays imagery, including image credit with link to source, to better educate users on how to use licensed imagery legally,” according to a press statement announcing the two businesses’ “global multi-year licensing agreement.”

A source familiar with the agreement told TechCrunch that Perplexity and Getty have been collaborating for over a year. Getty participated in Perplexity’s Publishers’ Program, which was never made public, according to the source. This program aimed to provide ad revenue to publishers when their material appeared in a search query. 

The contract reached today is a fresh one. Although the source would not provide any details, they informed the news outlet that because Perplexity does not train its own core models, the licensing agreement is not a typical lump sum one.

Perplexity’s contract with Getty seems to validate some of the startup’s earlier usage of Getty stock images. Several news outlets have accused Perplexity of plagiarism in the past year, drawing criticism. In one instance, the business came under fire for stealing text from a Wall Street Journal article, which included the Getty image. 

Many media sites at the time questioned if Perplexity had violated copyright by using the photos. Perplexity was negotiating a deal with Getty, according to a source who contacted the publication last year. Despite our repeated attempts to contact the stock photo giant, we were unable to verify the agreement.

In a more recent lawsuit filed in October, Reddit accused and sued Perplexity of engaging in “industrial-scale, unlawful” user content scraping and evading technical safeguards to obtain data. Reddit and OpenAI have an agreement for data licensing.

Every time a picture appears in search results, Perplexity claims that its Getty partnership will enable it to showcase photos more effectively and provide credits with links to the original source.

Getty Vice President of Strategic Development Nick Unsworth stated that the agreement “acknowledges the importance of properly attributed consent and its value in enhancing AI-powered products.”

In a statement, Jessica Chan, head of content and publisher relations at Perplexity, stated that perceptions of the world in the era of artificial intelligence should be based on attribution and accuracy. Through compelling visual storytelling, we’re assisting people in finding answers while making sure they always understand the source and creator of the content. 

As part of its strategy to defend against copyright accusations, Perplexity places a strong emphasis on attribution. It claims that using publisher content, such as content that is protected by a paywall or that publishers have specifically stated they do not want scraped, is “fair use” because publicly available facts are not protected by copyright.

Simple search responses to searches are provided by Perplexity’s search engine, which also provides connections to the original online source content.

Additionally, the company offers Comet, a free AI browser, all around the world. It faces direct competition from Google and OpenAI, which earlier this month unveiled ChatGPT Atlas, its own browser service.

Also the company’s announcement that it had reached a multi-year licensing arrangement with Perplexity AI, Getty Images’ shares closed down more than 6% on Friday.