--- title: New York Times and three other US papers sue Brave over... description: The New York Times and three other US newspapers have sued Brave Software over AI scraping and copyright infringement. The Times filed Monday, and hours later... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/new-york-times-and-three-other-us-papers-sue-brave-over-ai-scraping-a6npfekqt twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: New York Times and three other US papers sue Brave over AI scraping | daily.dev og:description: The New York Times and three other US newspapers have sued Brave Software over AI scraping and copyright infringement. The Times filed Monday, and hours later... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/new-york-times-and-three-other-us-papers-sue-brave-over-ai-scraping-a6npfekqt og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/A6nPfEKQT.png og:image:alt: New York Times and three other US papers sue Brave over AI scraping og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # New York Times and three other US papers sue Brave over AI scraping **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 4 min read · 8 upvotes · 2 comments ## Summary The New York Times and three other US newspapers have sued Brave Software over AI scraping and copyright infringement. The Times filed Monday, and hours later the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel filed a separate suit. Both cases target the Brave Index, a more than 30-billion-page web index that feeds Brave Search and is sold via API to Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI and Cohere. The newspapers also challenge Brave's Ask Brave AI answers, its Paywall blocker feature, and its ad-blocking business model. They cite a study showing AI crawlers generate 95.7% less referral traffic than Google search, and say more than two million articles are affected. According to the newspapers' complaint, Brave reported over $100m in 2025 revenue and 130 million monthly users. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why are the New York Times and other newspapers suing Brave Software? They accuse Brave of scraping their journalism without permission and selling access to it to AI companies through the Brave Index, a collection of more than 30 billion web pages. The claims include direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, DMCA circumvention, and unjust enrichment. Brave allegedly sells this data via its Search API to Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI and Cohere. _Following AI copyright disputes shaping data-sourcing norms is easier with daily.dev tracking the news as it breaks._ ### What is Brave's Paywall blocker feature and why is it controversial? Paywall blocker is a browser setting in Brave that lets users bypass news site paywalls and read subscription content without logging in. Newspapers suing Brave cite a Reddit user who used the feature to read the New York Times 'without interruption and without needing to set up an account,' arguing it enables unauthorized access to their content. _Developers weighing browser feature ethics and legal risk can keep up with cases like this via daily.dev._ ### How much less referral traffic do AI crawlers send to publishers compared to Google search? AI crawlers generate 95.7% less referral traffic than traditional Google search, according to a study cited in lawsuits against Brave by the New York Times and three other newspapers. This drop in referral traffic reduces publishers' opportunities to convert journalism into advertising and subscription revenue, a central grievance behind the copyright lawsuits. _Anyone tracking how AI search reshapes web traffic economics can follow developments like this on daily.dev._ ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@dio77799** · 0 upvotes > Targeting Brave's commercial index API makes this very different from standard search scraping cases. Huge implications for AI data providers. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [400 newspapers sue OpenAI and Microsoft over AI](https://daily.dev/posts/400-newspapers-sue-openai-and-microsoft-over-ai-ciee3rfpf) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The New York Times sues Perplexity for producing ‘verbatim’ copies of its work](https://daily.dev/posts/the-new-york-times-sues-perplexity-for-producing-verbatim-copies-of-its-work-pttritnvv) · The Verge · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The New York Times is suing Perplexity for copyright infringement](https://daily.dev/posts/the-new-york-times-is-suing-perplexity-for-copyright-infringement-ostuohlbw) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [News publishers limit Internet Archive access due to AI scraping concerns](https://daily.dev/posts/news-publishers-limit-internet-archive-access-due-to-ai-scraping-concerns-pfgxshyte) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#anthropic](https://daily.dev/tags/anthropic) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/new-york-times-and-three-other-us-papers-sue-brave-over-ai-scraping-a6npfekqt) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"New York Times and three other US papers sue Brave over AI scraping","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/new-york-times-and-three-other-us-papers-sue-brave-over-ai-scraping-a6npfekqt","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/new-york-times-and-three-other-us-papers-sue-brave-over-ai-scraping-a6npfekqt"},"datePublished":"2026-11-02T17:19:21.826Z","dateModified":"2026-11-02T17:20:48.362Z","description":"The New York Times and three other US newspapers have sued Brave Software over AI scraping and copyright infringement. 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Huge implications for AI data providers.","datePublished":"2026-11-02T19:46:24.801Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/A6nPfEKQT#c-qCTExuqzn","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Dio","url":"https://daily.dev/dio77799","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--D_CwPJ3R--/f_auto,pg_1/v1792945837/avatars/avatar_SEp70EmWGM0hHeihGBCha?_a=BAMAMiiw0"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/new-york-times-and-three-other-us-papers-sue-brave-over-ai-scraping-a6npfekqt#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why are the New York Times and other newspapers suing Brave Software?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"They accuse Brave of scraping their journalism without permission and selling access to it to AI companies through the Brave Index, a collection of more than 30 billion web pages. The claims include direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, DMCA circumvention, and unjust enrichment. 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