The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against privacy-focused web browser company Brave, alleging that Brave scraped the newspaper's copyrighted content without authorization and unlawfully distributed it to its own customers, including AI companies Anthropic and Perplexity.
Lawsuit · Privacy browser under legal challenge
A publisher sues Brave, alleging scraped articles were passed on to AI customers
The complaint argues the browser company collected copyrighted news content without authorization and then distributed it to paying customers, naming Anthropic and Perplexity. The allegations have not been tested in court.
How the alleged chain works
Two claims, as described by the plaintiff
STEP 1
Automated scraping
Copyrighted articles are allegedly collected without authorization.
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STEP 2
Redistribution
That material is allegedly passed on to the company's own paying customers.
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STEP 3
AI customers
Anthropic and Perplexity are named as examples of recipients.
Publisher's position
Content rights are being bypassed. Collecting articles through scraping and relaying them to customers, including AI developers, is unauthorized use of copyrighted journalism.
Technology industry's argument
Access to publicly available web content is essential for search, research and AI development. Whether such use counts as infringement is still unsettled.
Why it matters beyond this case
The suit targets the middle of the pipeline, not only AI developers
Intermediary liability
Courts may assess companies that resell or relay content, not just those that train models.
Scraping as infringement
Whether scraping for search or AI counts as infringement remains an open legal question.
Licensing ripple
Browsers, search providers and AI platforms may need new licensing terms for publisher content.
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