The New York Times and other newspapers sue Brave over AI data

Major media publishers, including The New York Times, New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and Orlando Sentinel, have filed two separate lawsuits against Brave Software in the Manhattan federal court. The publishers claim that the company unlawfully collects their publications, includes them in the Brave search index, and sells access to this data to artificial intelligence developers.

• Publishers accuse Brave of copying journalistic content, selling access to AI companies, and bypassing paywalls.
• At the center of the dispute is the Brave Index with over 30 billion pages and a hidden search crawler.
• Through the Search API, data is provided to AI giants such as Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI, and Cohere.
• Plaintiffs are seeking damages, profit disgorgement, and a permanent injunction covering over 2 million articles.

Claims regarding the Brave Index and AI partnerships

The core of the dispute revolves around the Brave Index, a database of over 30 billion web pages that powers the Brave Search engine. Publishers claim the company conceals the name of its search crawler, preventing website owners from identifying and blocking access to their content. Through the Search API, Brave provides index access to five AI companies: Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI, and Cohere.

The lawsuit cites Brave's own statements confirming that its API is used for training and working with large language models. Examples include Anthropic utilizing the API during the training of Claude 2. Publishers emphasize that these activities occur without authorization or licensing agreements, depriving original creators of fair compensation for their work.

Ask Brave, paywall blocking, and advertising controversies

The complaints also target Brave's native browser features. Publishers state that the Ask Brave AI search feature reproduces fragments of their articles verbatim and generates detailed summaries. Furthermore, three newspapers accuse the browser of bypassing paywalls, claiming that the Paywall blocker feature allows users to read subscription-only content without authorization.

The publishers also point out that while Brave blocks ads on news sites by default, it places its own advertisements, generating revenue from content produced by professional newsrooms. New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and Orlando Sentinel cited five violations, including direct and indirect copyright infringement, DMCA technical protection circumvention, and unjust enrichment.

Legal consequences and background of the publisher dispute

The scale of the litigation is significant, with three newspapers claiming over 2 million registered articles have been affected, seeking damages, profit disgorgement, and a permanent injunction. The New York Times brought separate claims regarding copyright infringement and technical protection circumvention.

This is not Brave's first legal conflict over indexing third-party content. In March 2025, the company filed a lawsuit against News Corp seeking recognition of its search indexing as fair use. In July, News Corp filed counterclaims accusing Brave of copyright infringement. Now, similar publisher disputes have expanded to encompass the use of search data within the booming artificial intelligence industry.