The New York Times and other newspaper companies have sued Brave Software, alleging that its browser bypasses paywalls and that the company provides copyrighted news content to AI firms without publishers’ consent. The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The complaint describes Brave as a “supplier, dealer, and distributor” of copyrighted material for its users and AI companies, naming Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI and Cohere. Citing third-party revenue estimates, the publishers claim Brave has earned more than $100 million by copying and reselling their work, while publishers received no payment.
According to the lawsuit, AI companies pay Brave for real-time content from its search index, which they use to train models and answer user queries. The complaint also points to Brave’s website, which says its Search API is used by companies including Cohere, Mistral, Perplexity and You.com.
The publishers accuse Brave of direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. They say the company copies articles for its search index, its Ask Brave AI search feature and an API that allegedly provides unlicensed material to other AI companies. The complaint further argues that Brave facilitates and profits from copying by its users and AI customers.
The lawsuit also alleges that Brave violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by circumventing measures publishers use to restrict access to their articles. It says a default browser setting can access paywalled content and show it to users. The complaint additionally claims Brave blocks ads that would otherwise appear on The New York Times’ website and displays its own ads, sharing some revenue with users while depriving the newspaper of advertising income.
The publishers are demanding that Brave disable its paywall-bypassing feature and end its deals with AI companies, according to the lawsuit.
Sources: Ars Technica.