Perplexity signs multi-year deal with Getty Images amid Copyright controversy

AI search startup Perplexity has signed a multi-year licensing agreement with Getty Images, allowing it to display Getty’s visual content across its AI-driven search and discovery tools. The deal represents a strategic shift for Perplexity, which has faced allegations of content scraping and plagiarism, and underscores its efforts to build more formal partnerships with content providers.

According to a source cited by TechCrunch, Perplexity and Getty have already been collaborating for over a year. Although not publicly announced, Getty was previously part of Perplexity’s Publishers’ Programme, which sought to share advertising revenue with publishers whose content appeared in the platform’s search results. The new deal formalises that collaboration.

The agreement is not structured as a traditional lump-sum licensing deal, since Perplexity does not train its own foundational AI models, the source added, without disclosing specific terms.

The partnership appears to legitimise some of Perplexity’s past use of Getty’s stock photos. Over the past year, the company has been criticised by several news outlets for allegedly plagiarising content, including instances where Getty Images featured within republished material sourced from media reports such as those by The Wall Street Journal.

At the time, questions were raised about whether Perplexity’s use of those images constituted copyright infringement. While a source had earlier indicated that the company was in discussions with Getty, the arrangement could not be confirmed until now.

The latest development follows a lawsuit filed by Reddit in October, accusing Perplexity of “industrial-scale, unlawful” data scraping and of bypassing technical restrictions to access user content. Reddit itself has a data licensing agreement with OpenAI.

Perplexity said the new deal with Getty will allow it to better display images with full attribution, including credits and links back to the original sources when they appear in search results.

Nick Unsworth, Getty’s Vice President of Strategic Development, said the partnership reinforces the importance of properly attributed consent and recognises the role of licensed imagery in enhancing AI-based tools.

Meanwhile, Jessica Chan, Head of Content and Publisher Partnerships at Perplexity, explained that the collaboration aims to ensure users understand where content originates from and who created it, while enhancing search results through visual storytelling.

Perplexity’s recent emphasis on attribution and accuracy aligns with its broader strategy to defend against copyright infringement claims. The company has continued to argue that its use of publisher content — even from paywalled or restricted sources — falls under fair use, as it involves publicly accessible facts rather than copyrighted expression.