The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against Brave Software, alleging the browser maker illegally bypasses paywalls and sells stolen news content to AI companies. The suit claims Brave acts as a "supplier, dealer, and distributor of stolen copyrighted content" for its users and prominent AI firms including Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, x AI, and Cohere. Citing third-party revenue estimates, the lawsuit alleges Brave has made over $100 million by copying and reselling publishers' work without consent, while publishers receive nothing.
The NYT claims AI companies pay Brave to access real-time online content from its search index to train models and respond to user queries. The lawsuit accuses Brave of direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringement, stating the browser scrapes articles for its search index and "Ask Brave" AI feature. Furthermore, the NYT alleges Brave violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by circumventing technological measures to restrict article access.
The browser's default setting allegedly bypasses paywalls, blocking advertising that would appear on The Times' website and showing Brave's own ads, depriving The Times of digital advertising revenue that funds journalism production.
Source: Ars Technica · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing