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Encyclopaedia Britannica v Perplexity AI Inc

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Case Information
Case name Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. v. Perplexity AI, Inc.[1]
Court U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York[1]
Docket 1:25-cv-07546 (JLR) (SLC)[2]
Filed September 10, 2025[1]
Judge(s) Jennifer L. Rochon; Sarah L. Cave (discovery magistrate judge)[1][3]
Plaintiffs Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.; Merriam-Webster, Inc.[1]
Defendants Perplexity AI, Inc.[1]
Case type Civil copyright and trademark action[1]
Claims / issues Alleged infringement involving AI retrieval and generated responses[2]
Status October 27, 2026: discovery order requires clarification of excluded two-dimensional artwork by November 10 and otherwise denies Perplexity’s itemization request; later proceedings not verified.[4]

Encyclopaedia Britannica v. Perplexity AI is a copyright and trademark action filed by Britannica and Merriam-Webster in the Southern District of New York on September 10, 2025.[1]

September 2, 2026 discovery order

Magistrate Judge Sarah L. Cave partly granted the publishers’ request for additional retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and user activity log (UAL) data. Perplexity must produce one additional RAG snapshot, with its date or period to be agreed through discussions, and host August 2025–January 2026 UAL data for inspection. The publishers must contribute $6,000 per month toward UAL hosting. The court balanced relevance against production burdens; this was a discovery ruling, not a determination of infringement.[2]

September 9, 2026 discovery order

Following the September 8 conference, Magistrate Judge Sarah L. Cave required responses concerning source code and data questions by September 11, with remaining data answers due September 18. A joint revised case-management plan is due September 15. The order records Perplexity’s intended September 18 Discord production, requires a September 25 discovery-status letter, and schedules a September 29 conference. These dates do not establish that production occurred or resolve infringement liability.[5]

October 27, 2026 excluded-material discovery order

Magistrate Judge Sarah L. Cave partly granted Perplexity’s request to supplement the publishers’ response to Interrogatory 3. She declined to require a page-by-page or line-by-line identification of material excluded from the asserted copyright registrations, applying discovery relevance and proportionality standards. The court accepted the response’s categories covering previously published material, public-domain content and third-party photographs.[4]

The publishers must clarify which two-dimensional artwork is excluded by November 10. If their reference to “certain” artwork was merely cautious, they may remove that qualification to resolve the ambiguity. The order addresses discovery rather than determining copyright validity or infringement.[4]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 S.D.N.Y., No. 1:25-cv-07546, docket entries reproduced by Justia, filing and assignment records
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 S.D.N.Y., ECF 114, discovery order (September 2, 2026), pp. 1, 6–13
  3. ↑ S.D.N.Y., ECF 111, discovery order (August 26, 2026), pp. 1–4
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 S.D.N.Y., opinion and order, ECF 152, October 27, 2026, pp. 1–8.
  5. ↑ S.D.N.Y., ECF 116, September 9, 2026, paragraphs 2–10.
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