Perplexity enters into a multi-year licensing deal with Getty Images

AI research startup Perplexity has signed a multi-year licensing agreement with Getty Images, giving it permission to display images from Getty across its AI-powered search and discovery tools. The deal represents a notable shift for the company, which has been hit by allegations of content theft and plagiarism, and signals an effort to establish more formal content partnerships.

Perplexity and Getty have been working together for more than a year, a source familiar with the deal told TechCrunch. Although it was never announced, Getty was part of Perplexity’s Publishers program, a plan to share advertising revenue with publishers when their content appears in a search query, the source said.

Today’s agreement is a new agreement. It’s not a traditional lump sum licensing deal, since Perplexity doesn’t train its underlying models, a source told TechCrunch, but would not clarify the terms.

Perplexity’s agreement with Getty appears to legitimize some of the startup’s past use of Getty’s stock images. Perplexity has come under fire over the past year due to a series of plagiarism accusations from several news organizations. In one case, the startup was called out for pulling content from a Wall Street Journal article, including a Getty Image in that article.

At the time, several outlets questioned whether Perplexity’s use of the images constituted copyright infringement. Last year, a source told TechCrunch that Perplexity was working on a deal with Getty, but we were unable to confirm the deal after reaching out to the photo giant several times.

Most recently, Reddit sued Perplexity in October, alleging that it was illegally copying user content on an industrial scale and circumventing technical measures to access data. Reddit has a data license agreement with OpenAI.

Perplexity says its Getty deal will help it display images better and include credits with links back to the original source when images appear in search results.

The agreement “recognizes the importance of properly attributed consent and its value in enhancing AI-powered products,” said Nick Unsworth, vice president of strategic development at Giti.

“Attribution and accuracy are fundamental to how people understand the world in the age of AI,” Jessica Chan, head of content and publisher partnerships at Perplexity, said in a statement. “Together, we help people discover answers through powerful visual storytelling while making sure they always know where this content came from and who created it.”

Perplexity’s focus on attribution is part of its strategy to defend against copyright accusations by arguing that its use of publisher content — including content that is paywalled or that publishers have explicitly indicated they don’t want to take down — constitutes “fair use” because publicly available facts are not protected by copyright.