(Reuters) – Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas was “surprised” by a lawsuit brought by media baron Rupert Murdoch's Dow Jones and the New York Post against the search startup, he said at the WSJ Tech Live conference on Wednesday.

Publishers owned by media conglomerate News Corp sued California-based Perplexity on Monday, alleging that the startup engages in “large-scale illegal copying” of its copyrighted works.

Srinivas said the publishers reached out to Perplexity “around June” and the startup responded that it was open to discussions with them.

Dow Jones and the New York Post sent a letter to Perplexity in July alerting Perplexity to the legal issues raised by the unauthorized use of copyrighted works and offering to discuss a possible licensing agreement. Perplexity did not respond, according to the lawsuit.

Since the launch of ChatGPT, publishers have been sounding the alarm about chatbots that can search the internet for information and create summaries for the user.

Earlier this month, the New York Times sent Perplexity a “cease and desist” letter demanding that it stop using the newspaper’s content for generative AI purposes.

Nvidia and Jeff Bezos-backed Perplexity has been accused by media organizations such as Forbes and Wired of plagiarizing their content, but has since launched a revenue share program to address some publishers' concerns.

(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)