# New York Times sues Brave over AI scraping and paywall bypass

Digest AI · Policy & Regulation · published 2026-11-02T17:51:19Z · updated 2026-11-02T19:19:17Z

Canonical: https://digestai.news/story/new-york-times-sues-brave-over-ai-scraping-and-paywall-bypass

## Summary

**The New York Times and three other publishers filed lawsuits** against Brave Software on Friday, accusing the company of scraping copyrighted content to train AI models and enabling users to bypass paywalls without permission. The complaint, filed by *New York Daily News*, *Chicago Tribune*, and *Orlando Sentinel*, alleges Brave monetizes scraped data through its **Brave Index**, selling access to AI firms like **Anthropic**, **Perplexity**, **Mistral**, **xAI**, and **Cohere** for training and query responses. The publishers claim Brave has never sought consent, compensated them, or blocked its browser from accessing their sites, despite repeated requests to stop the practice. **Graham James**, an NYT spokesperson, called Brave’s actions a violation of copyright law, stating the lawsuit aims to hold the company accountable for

## Key points

- New York Times and three publishers sue Brave Software for scraping copyrighted content to train AI models
- Brave allegedly sells scraped data via Brave Index to AI firms including Anthropic, Perplexity, and Mistral
- Publishers claim Brave bypasses paywalls without permission and has never compensated them

## Why it matters

The lawsuit highlights legal risks for AI training data sources and paywall circumvention, setting a precedent for publisher rights over scraped content.

## Sources

1. [The New York Times sues Brave web browser for AI scraping and bypassing paywalls](https://theverge.com/tech/1024588/brave-lawsuit-ai-scraping-new-york-times) (The Verge AI, 2026-11-02)
2. [New York Times and other outlets sue web browser Brave over alleged content scraping](https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/02/new-york-times-and-other-outlets-sue-web-browser-brave-over-alleged-content-scraping) (TechCrunch AI, 2026-11-02)

## Cite

Digest AI, "New York Times sues Brave over AI scraping and paywall bypass", 2 November 2026, https://digestai.news/story/new-york-times-sues-brave-over-ai-scraping-and-paywall-bypass

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