The Internet business model has been based on a tacit agreement for decades: If something is free, the product is probably us. For years, this logic was assumed without major shocks, but the emergence of artificial intelligence is changing the rules. Platforms that store human conversations have become gold mines for training models, and that has reopened old questions about the value of data. In the midst of this new scenario, Reddit has planted itself strongly. Although its millions of users do not receive any compensation for the content they generate, the company has made it clear that it will not tolerate others using it without paying for it.
Reddit’s firmness has materialized in a new lawsuit filed before US justice. The company accuses Perplexity AI and three data scraping service providers of having circumvented its protection mechanisms to access copyrighted content. In its complaint, Reddit describes “scraping on an industrial scale” and maintains that the objective of these companies is to illicitly obtain the material that feeds artificial intelligence engines. It’s a new chapter in a strategy to control the use of your content.
A rather particular case. At the center of the complaint are Perplexity AI and three mass data scraping intermediaries: SerpApi, Oxylabs and AWMProxy. Reddit describes them as “wannabe bank robbers,” a metaphor with which the company illustrates the attempt to access their content through indirect means. Instead of signing a licensing agreement, the lawsuit claims, these companies would have chosen to use third-party services to collect posts, comments and copyright-protected data. The conversational search engine is listed as a customer of “at least one” of those providers.
The court document details a pattern of behavior that, according to Reddit, has been repeated for months. The accused companies would have used automated methods to extract information from the platform despite the restrictions imposed on their public file. The result, the company denounces, was a constant flow of publications that ended up integrated into the defendant’s artificial intelligence engine. For Reddit, it is scraping “on an industrial scale” and for clearly commercial purposes.
The test that turned it all on. One of the most relevant episodes of the complaint is an experiment that Reddit considers key. In May 2024, the company ordered the defendant to stop collecting its data. However, shortly thereafter he saw an increase in Reddit mentions within the Perplexity answer engine. To verify this, he published an entry designed to be visible only by Google. According to the complaint, a few hours later the full text of that publication already appeared in the results generated by the accused company’s system.
Perplexity does not hide. Perplexity noted on Reddit’s own platform. In that message, it explained that it is an “application layer” company and that “it does not train artificial intelligence models with Reddit content.” “He has never done it,” the text added. According to the company, this difference makes it impossible to sign a licensing agreement like those that Reddit has reached with other companies. “A year ago, after explaining this, Reddit insisted that we pay anyway. Giving in to these types of tactics is not the way we do business,” the statement concluded.
When there is an agreement, there is money. Reddit’s position against Perplexity contrasts with the agreements it has signed with other technology companies. In February 2024 it expanded its collaboration with Google to allow access to its content through the data API, in a structured and licensed manner. Three months later, announced a similar alliance with OpenAI: ChatGPT and other company products can display recent Reddit posts in their responses.
What we accept (many times) without reading. Behind all this debate there is an element that many users overlook: the Reddit Terms of Service. By creating an account, each person grants the platform a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable and sublicensable license to use their content. This license allows you to copy, modify, distribute or publish any contribution, including making it available to other associated companies. The text also specifies that Reddit can use this material to “train artificial intelligence and machine learning models.” In other words, permission is already granted.
Something we have already seen, and what remains to be seen. Reddit has been drawing a clear pattern of action for some time. In 2023 it toughened its conditions for access to the APIwhich led to widespread protests and the temporary closure of thousands of communities. A year later, in May 2024, it sent a cease-and-desist letter to Perplexity for unauthorized use of its data and subsequently filed a lawsuit against Anthropic for similar reasons. The current litigation fits that same logic: protecting the value of your content and tightening your control over who can use it.
The case between Reddit and Perplexity is still in its initial phase, but its implications are evident. What the courts decide could set a precedent for future disputes between platforms and artificial intelligence developers. On the one hand there is the defense of free access to information; on the other, the right of companies to protect the content generated in their communities. The result will define the extent to which platforms control the material that users share daily.
Images | Reddit | Xataka with Gemini 2.5 | Perplexity
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