News Corp sues Brave for unauthorized scraping and resale of copyrighted articles to AI companies
News Corp sued Brave Software in federal court, alleging the search engine illegally scraped, copied, and resold copyrighted articles from its publications to AI companies without permission through Brave's 'Data for AI API' service. Brave had previously sued News Corp seeking to establish the legality of its practices after receiving a cease-and-desist letter.
What happened
News Corp filed a countersuit against Brave Software in Oakland federal court on July 21, 2026, accusing the search engine of 'flagrant theft' and 'covert scraping' of copyrighted articles from the Wall Street Journal and New York Post. Brave masks its web crawlers so publishers cannot detect or block them, then bundles extra-long snippets of approximately 250 words and sells the copied content through its 'Data for AI API' service to enterprise customers, primarily AI companies.
Brave had preemptively sued News Corp in March 2025 seeking a court declaration that its practices were legal, after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from News Corp. Brave filed a revised complaint in May 2026 and argued its indexing and provision of snippets and summaries constituted fair use.
Reported impact
News Corp alleges that as Brave copies and sells more content, it generates revenue while reducing incentive for AI companies to negotiate licenses with publishers. The lawsuit contends that 'publishers are cut out' of compensation for content that Brave monetizes.
Index analysis
News Corp distinguished lawful search engines, which operate transparently, store content in searchable indexes, and deliver brief snippets around 50 words alongside links to original sources, from Brave's alleged conduct of masking crawlers, bundling extra-long snippets of up to 250 words, and selling bundled content to AI companies.
Governance controls
News Corp is seeking an injunction and unspecified monetary damages, plus damages of up to $150,000 per infringement.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.