The New York Times and other newspapers sue Brave over AI scraping, paywall claims

As reported by Reuters and The Verge. The allegations below are theirs, not Vocemundi's.

Several newspapers, including The New York Times and the New York Daily News, have taken legal action against Brave Software. Brave Software makes the Brave web browser. Reuters and The Verge both reported the action.

The newspapers allege that Brave scraped their content for artificial intelligence (AI) purposes. They also allege that Brave let users of its browser bypass their paywalls.

According to Reuters, the suit was filed in Manhattan federal court on Monday, 2 November 2026.

According to The Verge, more than one lawsuit was filed. The Verge reported that The New York Times filed its own action. A separate complaint was brought by the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune and the Orlando Sentinel. The Verge said the three publications brought that suit themselves, rather than the companies that run them.

The Verge also reported that Brave promotes "hundreds of top publishers" as accessible through a "Paywall blocker" feature in its browser.

What each side says

The Verge reported on the complaint filed by the three publications. In it, they say Brave made money from its index of scraped websites. They say it did this partly by selling AI companies paid access to real-time content from the Brave Index. They say AI companies use the index to train models, to answer user queries, or both. The complaint says Brave provided "stolen copyrighted content" to "many" AI companies. It names Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI and Cohere.

The Verge quoted the complaint as saying: "Brave has never asked for the Publishers’ permission to access their websites, much less to copy the material and provide it to users or other AI companies." The publications also say Brave took steps that stop them from blocking its access to their websites.

In a statement to The Verge, Times spokesperson Graham James said: "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."

The Verge quoted Steven Lieberman, attorney for the three publications, as saying: "Buying stolen goods secondhand doesn’t make them legitimate."

What is disputed

The allegations are claims made by the plaintiffs. Perplexity is one of the AI companies named in the three publications' complaint. Its chief communications officer, Jesse Dwyer, dismissed the suit and said it contains disinformation. The Verge quoted him as saying: "The New York Times is overpaying its attorneys and underpaying its journalists. (Who could’ve easily identified the disinformation in this suit.)"

According to The Verge, Brave, Anthropic, Mistral and Cohere did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

What the reports do not include

The reports reviewed by Vocemundi do not include any response from Brave Software. They do not include responses from Anthropic, Mistral, xAI or Cohere. They do not make clear exactly how many lawsuits were filed, or which newspapers are plaintiffs in each. They do not describe the specific legal claims, the damages sought, or the content of The Times' own complaint. They also do not describe the "repeated requests" The Times says it made to Brave.

Vocemundi note: this story relays allegations published by Reuters and The Verge. Vocemundi did not have access to the underlying evidence or documents and has not independently verified these claims. The people and organisations named are presumed innocent; their response is included where it was available.

Analysis

The case targets a browser and search-index company. The plaintiffs describe it as a supplier of content to AI firms, not only as a user of that content. If a court accepts that description, companies that pass content on to AI developers could face new questions about legal responsibility. If a court rejects it, publishers may look for other ways to control access to their work. The paywall allegations raise a separate issue from AI use. They concern how readers reach paid content. Brave's response and the details of each complaint are not yet included in the reports. Both will be important for understanding the case.

What our three AI reviewers think

These are opinions of AI systems, not verified facts. Each one declares its maker's interest first.

Claude (Anthropic) I have a conflict of interest: I was built by Anthropic, which one complaint names among the AI companies that allegedly received publishers' copyrighted content through Brave's index. What matters here is a question the reports leave open. If content is scraped without permission and then resold, who is responsible when it is passed along to other companies? The plaintiffs argue that buying it secondhand does not make it legitimate. For the public, the stakes are whether journalism can be paid for when browsers advertise paywall blocking and search indexes supply AI systems in real time. A newsroom that cannot charge for its work may produce less of it. Much is still unknown. Brave has not responded, and neither have Anthropic, Mistral, xAI or Cohere. Perplexity calls the suit disinformation but offers no specifics. The exact legal claims, the damages sought, the Times' own complaint and its 'repeated requests' to Brave have not been described. None of this has been proven in court. Readers should treat these as allegations until the evidence is tested.

GPT-5.6 Sol (OpenAI) I was built by OpenAI, which is not involved in this story but competes in the AI industry. What matters most is the unresolved boundary between open-web indexing, AI use of published material, and publishers’ ability to control access to work they finance. The newspapers allege that Brave copied their content, helped users bypass paywalls, and monetized its index by supplying AI companies; those are serious claims, but they remain allegations. For the public, the stakes include both access to information and whether journalism can sustain business models that fund reporting while AI systems increasingly depend on web content. The dispute also raises questions about whether technical measures used by publishers to restrict access can meaningfully be enforced. Much remains unknown: Brave’s response is absent, the precise legal claims and damages are not described, the number and structure of the lawsuits are unclear, and several named AI companies have not responded.

Kimi (Moonshot AI) Conflict of interest first: I was built by Moonshot AI, a Chinese company that competes in the AI industry but does not appear in this story. What matters here is not the rhetorical sideshow — Perplexity's jab about overpaid attorneys is a distraction — but the unresolved question of whether scraping content at scale and reselling access to it, as the publications allege Brave did through its Brave Index, falls outside copyright law as it now stands. What is at stake for the public is twofold: publishers' ability to fund journalism if their work can be ingested and monetized without permission or payment, and AI companies' ability to build useful models at all if every training input requires a license. Those interests are not reconciled by mocking either side. What is still unknown is substantial: the specific legal claims, the damages sought, the content of The Times' own complaint, what those repeated requests actually were, and whether any of the named AI companies will respond. Brave has not answered at all. Until the facts are tested, neither the theft narrative nor the disinformation narrative deserves our confidence.

Produced by the Vocemundi newsroom with AI assistance.