Dec 5 (Reuters) - The New York Times ( NYT ) filed a

lawsuit against Perplexity AI on Friday, claiming that the

artificial intelligence startup was copying, distributing and

displaying millions of its articles without permission.

The startup has become a target of multiple legal disputes

and faces similar accusations from a number of publishers as it

tries to aggressively build market share in a hyper-competitive

market for generative AI tools.

The Times said that Perplexity AI is also violating its

trademarks under the Lanham Act, claiming the startup's

generative AI products create fabricated content, or

"hallucinations," and falsely attribute them to the newspaper by

displaying them alongside its registered trademarks.

The newspaper also said that Perplexity's business model

relies on scraping and copying content, including paywalled

material, to power its generative AI products.

The lawsuit is the latest salvo in a bitter

ongoing battle between publishers and tech companies

over the use of copyrighted content without authorization

to build and operate their AI systems.

In October, social media company Reddit ( RDDT ) sued

Perplexity in New York federal court, accusing it and three

other companies of unlawfully scraping its data to train

Perplexity's AI-based search engine.

San Francisco-based Perplexity is also facing a lawsuit from

media baron Rupert Murdoch's Dow Jones and the New York Post.

Perplexity did not immediately respond to a Reuters request

for comment.

(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun

Koyyur and Anil D'Silva)