The New York Times, New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel filed two lawsuits against Brave Software in a New York federal court on 2 November.
The publishers allege that Brave copied their articles without permission to build its search index, supplied access to that material to AI companies and enabled users of its browser to circumvent paywalls. The complaints assert copyright infringement and claims under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. They identify several AI developers as customers or recipients of Brave’s data services, but those companies are not defendants in these proceedings.
The allegations have not been determined, and Brave had not publicly responded when the cases were reported.
The development matters because AI copyright litigation is moving beyond model developers. Publishers are now targeting the infrastructure that collects, indexes and distributes online material before it reaches a model or answer engine.
Expanding the legal due-diligence problem for AI providers and their customers. Establishing that information was technically accessible—or acquired through a third-party index—may not answer whether access restrictions were bypassed, copyright-management information was removed, or downstream use was authorised.
A similar distinction is central to Australia’s debate over training on “publicly available” material: availability, lawful acquisition and permission to reuse are separate questions.
Sources: complaint summary and attached filing; Reuters.
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