News Corp countersues Brave for allegedly 'scraping' articles for AI

Brave sued News Corp in March 2025, seeking a court declaration that bundling copyrighted articles that can be licensed and sold is not copyright infringement. It filed a revised complaint in May 2026, following what News Corp called failed negotiations for a "fair, market-based agreement." Brave has argued that its indexing of News Corp content to make it searchable, and providing users with snippets and "high-level summaries" of that content, amounted to fair use. The San Francisco-based company also accused News Corp of threatening to disrupt advances in generative AI, which it said many consider "the most important innovation so far this century." July 21 (Reuters) - News Corp NWSA.O, facing a lawsuit by search engine Brave Software, has filed a countersuit accusing it of "flagrant theft" in distributing and selling versions of articles from the *Wall Street Journal* and *New York Post* to AI companies. Brave had last year preemptively sued the media giant, seeking a court declaration that its practices were legal. It sued after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from News Corp, which is led by the family of Rupert Murdoch. In a Tuesday filing in the Oakland, California, federal court, News Corp said Brave's unauthorized "covert scraping" and resale of its copyrighted articles fall "nowhere near the bounds" of legally acceptable conduct known as fair use. "The more content Brave copies and sells, the more revenue it generates, and the less incentive AI companies have to negotiate licenses with the publishers who produced the content," the lawsuit said. "Brave profits while publishers are cut out." News Corp is seeking an injunction and unspecified monetary damages, plus damages of up to $150,000 per infringement. Brave and its lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours. News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson said in a statement that Brave's looting of his company's content reflected "blatant disregard" for the damage to how information is disseminated. "This era of tacky tech trafficking must come to an end if journalism is to have a sustainable future," Thomson said. Brave has said it is the smallest of the three U.S.-based companies to operate independent search engines "at scale." Google GOOGL.O dominates that market, followed by Microsoft MSFT.O, which operates Bing. The New York Post, Dow Jones and News Corp's British and Australian operations are also defendants in Brave's lawsuit. The competing lawsuits are part of a wave of litigation pitting publishers against technology companies that want to use copyrighted content to support AI.

News Corp countersues Brave for allegedly 'scraping' articles for AI

Brave says its use of News Corp content is fair use

News Corp files countersuit over AI article scraping

News Corp says Brave's conduct undermines journalism

Publishers and tech companies battle over copyrighted content for AI

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