New York Times sues maker of Brave web browser over copyrights

By Blake Brittain

Nov 2 (Reuters) - A group of newspapers, including the New York Times NYT.N and the New York Daily News, sued internet company Brave Software in Manhattan federal court on Monday for allegedly scraping their articles for AI training and unlawfully enabling users of its web browser to circumvent their paywalls.

• The newspapers said in the complaints that Brave illegally sells their content to AI companies including Anthropic, Perplexity and xAI — which are not defendants in the cases — in addition to infringing their copyrights by allowing users to access their articles for free

• Spokespeople for Brave, Anthropic, Perplexity and xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaints

• "While we believe in the ethical and responsible use and development of AI, Brave has flouted established copyright law and ignored repeated requests by The Times to stop its infringing conduct," New York Times spokesperson Graham James said in a statement

• The complaints are part of a wave of high-stakes lawsuits brought by copyright owners against generative AI companies over the use of their content for AI training

• The news outlets have separately sued OpenAI in a potential landmark case over its AI training

• The outlets' lawsuits filed on Monday said that Brave "acts both like a burglar that misappropriates the content of publishers, and an AI 'fence' that sells stolen content to third parties"

The cases are New York Times Co v. Brave Software Inc, US District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 1:26-cv-09549 and Daily News LP v. Brave Software Inc, US District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 1:26-cv-09554

For the news outlets: Steven Lieberman of Rothwell Figg Ernst & Manbeck

For Brave: attorney information not yet available