New York Times sues Brave over paywall blocker and AI content access
The Times and other newspapers want a court to stop Brave’s alleged paywall bypassing and AI-content distribution, and to award damages.
By James Whitfield · Staff Writer
3 min read
The New York Times sued Brave Software in federal court in Manhattan on Nov. 2, alleging the browser maker copied its journalism, enabled readers to evade paywalls and supplied publisher content to AI companies. The case matters because the Times is seeking an injunction that could halt the practices it challenges, along with damages and recovery of profits.
Reuters reported that the Times filed New York Times Co. v. Brave Software Inc., No. 1:26-cv-09549, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel filed a separate case, Daily News LP v. Brave Software Inc., No. 1:26-cv-09554, making similar allegations.
What does the New York Times lawsuit against Brave allege?
According to the Times’ complaint, Brave collected copyrighted articles for its search index and used that material in its Ask Brave search feature and Search API. Ars Technica reported that the complaint alleges AI companies pay Brave for access to real-time content from the index, which can be used for model training, answering user questions or both.
The filings name Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI and Cohere among companies alleged to receive Brave Index content. Those companies are not defendants in the Brave cases, Reuters reported.
The complaints also challenge Brave’s Paywall blocker browser feature. The Times alleges that the setting can provide users with paywalled articles and that Brave blocks ads on the Times’ site while displaying its own advertising. Ars Technica reported that it tested the optional feature on a Mac and was able to read a paywalled Times article; the publication said the setting could be turned off.
The Times alleges direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, as well as circumvention of access controls under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The separate publishers’ complaint also includes an unjust-enrichment claim under New York law, according to The Next Web.
What are the newspapers asking the court to do?
The plaintiffs are asking for a permanent injunction, meaning a court order that would prohibit the conduct found unlawful if they prevail. The Times also seeks statutory and actual damages, restitution of profits allegedly tied to infringement, and disgorgement of revenue and profits allegedly connected to its ad-substitution claims, Ars Technica reported.
No court has ordered Brave to disable its paywall feature or end its AI-related business arrangements. The cases are unresolved, and the supplied record contains no substantive response from Brave.
Times spokesperson Graham James told Reuters that the company had repeatedly asked Brave to stop the conduct it calls infringing. Reuters reported that Brave, Anthropic and xAI did not immediately respond to comment requests. Perplexity, which is not a defendant, called the lawsuit “disinformation,” though Ars Technica reported that the company did not identify specific inaccuracies in the Brave complaint.
The filings are separate from the Times’ December 2025 lawsuit against Perplexity and its December 2023 case against OpenAI and Microsoft, Ars Technica reported.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.