Times and three publishers sue Brave

The New York Times, New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel filed lawsuits against Brave Software over alleged unlawful scraping to train AI and letting users bypass paywalls.

Brave sold content to AI firms

According to the complaint, Brave monetized its index of scraped websites by providing AI companies with paid access to real-time online content from the Brave Index to train their models.

Multiple AI companies named

Brave allegedly provided stolen copyrighted content to many AI companies including Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI and Cohere without permission or compensation to the publishers.

Paywall blocker feature alleged

Brave promotes hundreds of top publishers as accessible through its Paywall blocker feature in its browser, allowing users to bypass paywalls without the publishers' consent.

Times accuses Brave of theft

Graham James, an NYT spokesperson, said Brave flouted copyright law and ignored repeated requests to stop. The Times filed the lawsuit to hold Brave accountable for stealing content.

“Brave has flouted established copyright law and ignored repeated requests by The Times to stop its infringing conduct.”

Attorney calls it content laundering

Steven Lieberman, attorney for the other three publications, said Brave Software is selling AI companies a back door to journalism they have no right to, laundering pirated reporting.

“Brave must be held responsible for laundering pirated reporting for the AI industry.”