Tech Company Brave Plundered Newspapers’ Content and Resold It to AI Giants: Copyright Lawsuit
The publishers say Brave scraped more than 30 billion web pages and sold access to AI developers without permission.
- On Monday, The New York Times and Tribune Publishing newspapers—including the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and Orlando Sentinel—filed federal lawsuits in Manhattan Federal Court against Brave Software, alleging illegal scraping and sale of copyrighted journalism to AI companies.
- Brave allegedly built an index of more than 30 billion webpages using an unidentified crawler to bypass paywalls, acting as "a burglar that misappropriates the content of publishers, and an AI 'fence' that sells stolen content," the lawsuits claim.
- Through its Search API, Brave sells scraped data to AI firms including Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI, and Cohere; the company also provides a "Paywall blocker" feature allowing users to access subscription content without logging in.
- Publishers cite a study finding AI crawlers generate 95.7% less referral traffic than traditional search, threatening revenue streams. Frank Pine, executive editor at Tribune Publishing, stated Brave had made "a mockery of our intellectual property laws."
- The Times and other papers previously sued OpenAI and Microsoft over similar content-theft allegations. While Brave did not immediately respond to requests for comment, these filings expand a growing wave of copyright litigation against tech giants.
17 Articles
17 Articles
Tech company Brave plundered Daily News’ content and resold it to AI giants: copyright lawsuit
The Daily News, the New York Times, and affiliated newspapers filed federal lawsuits in Manhattan Monday accusing the technology company Brave Software of using high-tech scraping tools to illegally plunder their websites for exclusive news stories to resell to A.I. giants, including Anthropic and Perplexity.
Tech company Brave plundered Chicago Tribune’s content and resold it to A.I. giants: copyright lawsuit
The Manhattan Federal Court complaint says Brave acts as “the supplier, dealer, and distributor of stolen copyrighted content” and provides a back door circumventing paywalls to its own users as well as prominent generative A.I. companies to help build their businesses.
TechCrunch
BizTocNew York Times and other outlets sue web browser Brave over alleged content scraping
The New York Times is suing privacy-focused web browser company Brave for allegedly scraping the outlet’s copyrighted and unlawfully distributing it to its own customers, like Anthropic and Perplexity.
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