The New York Times and other publishers have sued Brave Software, the company behind the Brave web browser, alleging it copied their articles for AI-related services and helped users bypass paywalls. The publishers say Brave built an index of websites without permission, then sold AI companies access to its “real-time online content.”
A complaint filed by companies that operate the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel alleges that AI companies use Brave’s index to train models, answer user questions, or both. It names Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI and Cohere as companies that allegedly received copyrighted material through the index. The complaint says Brave never sought permission or paid publishers for the material.
The claims cover paywalls, too
The publishers also accuse Brave of promoting a “Paywall blocker” that makes hundreds of publishers’ websites accessible through its browser. They say Brave took steps to prevent publishers from blocking its access. The allegations concern both the collection and sale of website content and the browser feature; the lawsuits do not establish that a court has found Brave liable.
A New York Times spokesperson said the company had repeatedly asked Brave to stop what it called infringing conduct. The spokesperson said the suit is intended to hold Brave accountable for using Times content in its own products and supplying it to AI companies.
Brave, Anthropic, Mistral, SpaceXSI and Cohere did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment. Perplexity’s chief communications officer Jesse Dwyer dismissed the suit in a statement, saying the Times was “overpaying its attorneys and underpaying its journalists.”
What remains unresolved
The dispute puts two uses of web content in the same case: making material available to AI companies through an index, and letting browser users view pages that publishers say are behind paywalls. The publishers’ filing describes Brave’s practices and their objections; the available details do not say whether the court has ruled on the claims or whether Brave has changed its products.
For readers, the immediate question is whether the case will lead to changes in Brave’s index or paywall-blocking feature. No such change is documented in the coverage, and the claims remain allegations rather than a court finding.
Why it matters
People who use Brave may be affected if a court case leads to changes in its index or paywall-blocking feature, but no product change is documented. The publishers’ accusations have not been established by a court, and the coverage does not say what remedies they are seeking.
