The New York Times has sued Brave Software, alleging the browser maker built an index of scraped websites and sold AI companies paid access to it, according to a complaint filed by the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Orlando Sentinel. The suit claims Brave monetized that index in part by giving AI companies access to what the complaint describes as real-time online content from the Brave Index. Those companies then used the material to train their models, to answer specific user queries, or both, the complaint says.
Brave allegedly supplied what the complaint calls stolen copyrighted content to many AI companies, including Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI, and Cohere. The filing also points to a Brave feature called Paywall blocker, which the company promotes as giving access to hundreds of top publishers through its browser. According to the complaint, Brave never sought the publishers' permission to access their sites, copy material, or pass it to users or other AI companies, and it allows users to get around paywalls without consent while taking other steps that keep publishers from blocking its access. The publishers say Brave has never compensated them.
Graham James, a New York Times spokesperson, said in a statement that while the Times supports ethical and responsible AI development, Brave has disregarded established copyright law and ignored repeated requests from the Times to stop the conduct. James said the lawsuit was filed to hold Brave responsible for taking the Times' content to power its own products and to supply it to some of the most prominent and well-funded generative AI companies.
Steven Lieberman, the attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Orlando Sentinel, said AI companies are eager to avoid being caught taking news from publishers, and that Brave is selling them a route to journalism they have no right to. He argued that purchasing stolen material secondhand does not make it legitimate and that Brave should be held responsible for passing pirated reporting to the AI industry.
Brave, Anthropic, Mistral, SpaceXSI, and Cohere did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to the report. Jesse Dwyer, Perplexity's chief communications officer, said the Times is overpaying its attorneys and underpaying its journalists, adding that the disinformation in the suit could have been easily identified.
The dispute centers on how AI developers obtain news content and whether browser features that remove paywalls unlawfully distribute publishers' work. Brave's index and its paywall-skipping tool are marketed to users and, according to the complaint, to AI companies as a way to reach publisher content. The case adds Brave to the list of technology companies facing copyright claims from news organizations over the use of their reporting.
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