Greetings from Napa. It's day two of the MMA CMO & CEO Summit, and I'm really looking forward to doing my keynote this morning.
In the news: Condé Nast (the media giant behind The New Yorker, Vogue, and Wired) has sent a cease-and-desist letter to AI search startup Perplexity, demanding that Perplexity stop plagiarizing Condé Nast content.
This is just the latest copyright issue for Perplexity. A revealed that the AI startup's web crawlers ignore robots.txt files, which website owners use to block content scraping. This practice has led to an investigation by AWS and has raised concerns about the ethical and legal implications of AI development.
Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch warns that many media companies could face financial ruin before litigation against AI companies concludes. He's calling for immediate congressional action, urging AI companies to compensate publishers and establish licensing deals. Earlier this month, Perplexity's chief business officer, Dmitry Shevelenko, said Perplexity is planning a revenue sharing program, but he didn't go into details.
This is just the latest attempt by content owners to protect their intellectual property. Many lawsuits will follow. Can you put the toothpaste back in the tube? Unring a bell? Get the cat back into the bag? Unscramble an egg?
As always your thoughts and comments are both welcome and encouraged. Just reply to this email. -s
ABOUT SHELLY PALMER
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named he covers tech and business for , is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular . He's a , and the creator of the popular, free online course, . Follow or visit .
