The New York Times and several other publishers, including the owners of the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and Orlando Sentinel, have initiated legal action against Brave Software. The plaintiffs allege that the company uses its web browser to scrape copyrighted material without authorization.
According to the lawsuit, Brave monetizes its index of scraped data by selling access to AI companies. The complaint states that Brave provides real-time online content to firms such as Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI, and Cohere to train their models or answer user queries.
The publishers further claim that Brave’s browser features a paywall blocker that allows users to bypass subscription requirements. The complaint asserts that Brave has never requested permission to access, copy, or distribute this content, nor has it provided compensation to the publishers.
A spokesperson for The New York Times stated that the company filed the suit to hold Brave accountable for unauthorized content usage. Meanwhile, a representative for Perplexity disputed the claims, suggesting the lawsuit contains disinformation and criticizing the legal strategy of The New York Times.
