The New York Times, Other Publishers Sue Brave Over AI Scraping
AI-generated image · US National Wire
Lawsuits allege the browser company monetized a scraped index to provide AI firms with 'stolen copyrighted content' and bypassed publisher paywalls.
The New York Times and a group of other publications have filed lawsuits against Brave Software over allegations of unlawful scraping to train AI and facilitating the bypassing of digital paywalls, as first reported by The Verge.
According to complaints filed by The New York Times, as well as the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Orlando Sentinel, Brave has monetized an index of scraped websites by selling paid access to "real-time online content" to various AI firms. These firms reportedly use the index to train models and respond to user queries. The lawsuits allege Brave provided "stolen copyrighted content" to several prominent AI companies, including Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI, and Cohere.
Steven Lieberman, the attorney representing the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and Orlando Sentinel, described the arrangement as a "back door" for AI giants and accused Brave of "laundering pirated reporting for the AI industry."
The lawsuits also target Brave's "Paywall blocker" feature, which the company promotes as providing access to hundreds of top publishers. The plaintiffs allege Brave never sought permission or provided compensation for the distribution of copyrighted material and actively prevented publishers from blocking access.
Graham James, a spokesperson for The New York Times, told The Verge the lawsuit seeks to hold Brave accountable for stealing content to power its own products and those of "well resourced generative AI companies."
In response, Perplexity's chief communications officer Jesse Dwyer dismissed the suit, claiming The New York Times is "overpaying its attorneys and underpaying its journalists." As of The Verge's reporting, Brave, Anthropic, Mistral, SpaceXSI, and Cohere had not provided immediate comment.