TLDR: Reddit has initiated legal action against AI search developer Perplexity AI and three data firms—Oxylabs UAB, AWMProxy, and SerpApi—accusing them of illegally scraping its content to train artificial intelligence models. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges copyright infringement and the circumvention of Reddit’s security measures. Reddit claims that Perplexity continued and even intensified its scraping activities despite receiving a cease-and-desist letter. Perplexity, however, denies the allegations, asserting that it merely summarizes public discussions and properly cites its sources, viewing the lawsuit as a tactic in data licensing negotiations.
Social media giant Reddit has filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence (AI) search developer Perplexity AI and three data firms, Oxylabs UAB, AWMProxy, and SerpApi, alleging illegal and ‘industrial-scale’ scraping of its user-generated content to train AI models. The complaint, lodged on Wednesday, October 22, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, accuses the defendants of violating copyright protections and circumventing Reddit’s technological barriers.
According to Reddit, its platform, with over 110 million daily active users and more than 22 billion posts and comments, represents one of the largest and most dynamic collections of human conversation, making its data ‘invaluable to AI companies’ and ‘particularly well-suited to training’ large language models (LLMs).
Reddit has already entered into licensing agreements with major AI players like Google and OpenAI for its data. Reddit’s Chief Legal Officer, Ben Lee, stated, ‘AI companies are locked in an arms race for quality human content—and that pressure has fueled an industrial-scale ‘data laundering’ economy.’ He further elaborated that when unable to scrape Reddit directly, these firms ‘mask their identities, hide their locations, and disguise their web scrapers to steal Reddit content from Google Search.’ The lawsuit specifically alleges that in a two-week period in July 2025, the data firms accessed nearly three billion search engine result pages (SERPs) containing Reddit text, images, and videos without permission.
The complaint characterizes Perplexity as a ‘willing customer of at least one of these scrapers, choosing to buy stolen data rather than enter into a lawful agreement with Reddit itself.’ Reddit claims to have sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter, but instead of complying, Perplexity allegedly increased its use of Reddit data ‘forty-fold.’ Reddit has likened the defendants to ‘would-be bank robbers, who, knowing they cannot get into the bank vault, break into the armored truck carrying the cash instead.’ The platform is seeking injunctive relief to prevent further unauthorized access to its data, along with damages for lost profits, business opportunities, reputational harm, and loss of user trust.
Perplexity has publicly denied the allegations, stating it has not yet received the lawsuit but ‘will always fight vigorously for users’ rights to freely and fairly access public knowledge.’ The company maintains that its ‘approach remains principled and responsible as we provide factual answers with accurate AI,’ and that it ‘will not tolerate threats against openness and the public interest.’ Perplexity’s August 2025 blog post, cited in Reddit’s complaint, acknowledged Reddit as one of its ‘top tier sources’ and ‘the most cited domain across AI models globally.’
Also Read:
- YouTube Introduces AI-Powered Likeness Protection for Creators to Combat Deepfakes
- AI Chatbots Frequently Provide Inaccurate News, International Study Reveals
This legal battle is part of a broader trend of intellectual property disputes in the AI industry. Earlier this year, Reddit also sued AI company Anthropic for allegedly bypassing its security measures to scrape content. Furthermore, Perplexity itself was recently sued by Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, for copyright infringement related to its use and repackaging of copyrighted content and for generating ‘hallucinations’ falsely attributed to news outlets.
