Perplexity Strikes Multi-Year Deal with Getty Images
AI search company Perplexity has entered a multi-year licensing agreement with Getty Images, allowing it to display Getty’s visuals within its AI-driven search and discovery tools. The partnership marks a major step for Perplexity, which has faced criticism over content scraping and plagiarism, and reflects a broader effort to build legitimate content relationships.
According to someone familiar with the arrangement, Perplexity and Getty had already been collaborating for more than a year. Although that earlier cooperation was not publicized, Getty was reportedly included in Perplexity’s Publishers’ Program, an initiative designed to share advertising revenue with publishers when their material appeared in search results.
The newly announced deal, however, represents a fresh and more formal agreement. One source noted that it isn’t a typical lump-sum licensing contract, largely because Perplexity does not develop or train its own foundational AI models, though specific financial details were not disclosed.
This new partnership effectively validates some of Perplexity’s prior use of Getty’s stock images. Over the past year, the company has been accused by multiple news outlets of plagiarism. In one notable instance, it was criticized for reproducing a Wall Street Journal article’s content, including the Getty photograph that accompanied it.
At the time, critics questioned whether Perplexity’s use of such photos amounted to copyright infringement. A source indicated last year that the startup was negotiating with Getty to secure image rights, though no confirmation was available from Getty at that stage.
Addressing Copyright Concerns and Emphasizing Attribution
In a separate controversy, Reddit filed a lawsuit against Perplexity in October, claiming the startup engaged in “industrial-scale, unlawful” scraping of user-generated content and bypassed technical safeguards to gather data. Reddit itself maintains a data licensing deal with OpenAI.
Perplexity now says its collaboration with Getty will improve how images are displayed across its products, ensuring that each photo is properly credited and linked to its original source whenever it appears in search results.
Nick Unsworth, Getty’s vice president of strategic development, described the partnership as recognition of “the importance of properly attributed content and its role in strengthening AI-powered tools.”
Perplexity’s head of content and publisher partnerships, Jessica Chan, emphasized that attribution and accuracy are central to how information should be understood in the AI era. She said the companies aim to help people discover information through “powerful visual storytelling” while clearly identifying creators. This focus on attribution also aligns with Perplexity’s broader legal stance — the company has argued that its use of publisher material, even from paywalled or restricted sources, qualifies as fair use since it primarily draws from publicly available facts that cannot be copyrighted.
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