The Wall Street Journal and New York Post owner seeks an injunction and damages after accusing Brave of unauthorized scraping that undercuts licensing talks with AI firms.
News Corp has countersued Brave Software in federal court in Oakland, California, accusing the search engine company of unlawfully scraping, distributing and selling versions of articles from the Wall Street Journal and New York Post to AI companies. The media group said in a Tuesday filing that Brave’s unauthorized and covert scraping of copyrighted material falls outside fair use, and it is seeking an injunction, unspecified monetary damages, and up to $150,000 per infringement. The dispute sits within a broader legal fight between publishers and technology companies over whether copyrighted content can be used to train or support generative AI systems. Brave had sued News Corp in March 2025 after receiving a cease-and-desist letter, seeking a declaration that bundling copyrighted articles for licensing and sale was lawful, and later revised its complaint in May 2026 after negotiations that News Corp described as unsuccessful. Brave has argued that indexing News Corp content to make it searchable, along with providing snippets and high-level summaries, qualifies as fair use. News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson said Brave’s conduct showed “blatant disregard” for the harm to the dissemination of information and added, “This era of tacky tech trafficking must come to an end if journalism is to have a sustainable future.”