The New York Times sues Brave web browser for AI scraping and bypassing paywalls
News Source
β’2026-11-02T12:51:19-05:00
π° What Happened
The New York Times and three other newspapers have sued Brave Software, the company behind the Brave browser. They say Brave scraped their websites without permission and sold access to AI companies.
Brave also offers a feature that lets users bypass paywalls, which the publishers say steals their work. Brave has not commented on the case.
π The Backstory
The complaint says Brave gave content to firms including Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI and Cohere. The publishers say Brave never asked permission and never paid for the material.
The Times says it asked Brave to stop and got no result. Perplexity dismissed the lawsuit, saying the Times is underpaying its journalists.
π― Why It Matters
News costs money to report. If AI tools can take it without paying, smaller publishers may not survive.
The New York Times and three other newspapers have sued Brave Software, the company behind the Brave browser. They say Brave scraped their websites without permission and sold access to AI companies.
Brave also offers a feature that lets users bypass paywalls, which the publishers say steals their work. Brave has not commented on the case.
The complaint says Brave gave content to firms including Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI and Cohere. The publishers say Brave never asked permission and never paid for the material.
The Times says it asked Brave to stop and got no result. Perplexity dismissed the lawsuit, saying the Times is underpaying its journalists.
News costs money to report. If AI tools can take it without paying, smaller publishers may not survive.