Why it matters: Publishers facing traffic declines are considering partnerships with the AI company that allegedly stole their content for years.
Perplexity is positioning itself as “publisher-friendly” with a new revenue-sharing model tied to its Comet browser, just as major outlets sue the company for copyright violations.
The big picture: This isn’t partnership. It’s damage control masquerading as industry leadership.
– Publishers report they can’t even get meetings with Perplexity’s one-person partnerships team
– The company won’t reveal how much of its $42.5M fund has actually been paid out
– Success depends on Comet browser adoption, but Perplexity hides usage figures
Between the lines: Publishers aren’t considering this deal because it’s good, they’re drowning and grasping for any revenue stream.
The catch: “Usage-based compensation” sounds fair until you read the fine print.
– Payments tied to vague metrics: access by “humans, crawlers, or AI agents”
– No transparency on how usage is calculated or verified
– Previous Perplexity revenue programs were “underdeveloped and opaque”
What’s happening: BBC, Forbes, News Corp and others are suing Perplexity for systematically bypassing content protections and scraping without permission.
– The timing of this publisher outreach, amid mounting legal pressure, isn’t coincidental
– Publishers who created the content powering Perplexity’s AI are now offered table scraps
The bottom line: When your industry is collapsing and you’re desperate for revenue, even exploitative partnerships can seem preferable to extinction. That doesn’t make them acceptable.
