OAKLAND, California – News Corp filed a countersuit on Wednesday, July 22, 2026, in federal court in Oakland, accusing Brave Software of what it calls “flagrant theft” and “tacky tech trafficking” for allegedly scraping and reselling millions of copyrighted articles to artificial intelligence developers without authorization. The complaint focuses on content from marquee News Corp outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, and alleges that Brave systematically harvested and monetized this material without permission. News Corp is seeking a permanent injunction to stop the alleged scraping, unspecified monetary damages, and statutory penalties of up to $150,000 for each claimed instance of copyright infringement. SAN FRANCISCO, California – The countersuit marks a sharp escalation in a legal battle that began in March 2025, when Brave, based in San Francisco, preemptively sued News Corp after receiving a cease-and-desist letter. Brave asked a court to declare that its search indexing and provision of snippets and “high-level summaries” of articles were lawful and protected under the fair use doctrine, and it filed an amended complaint in May 2026 after negotiations over what News Corp described as a fair, market-based agreement broke down. The new filing by News Corp underscores the growing legal conflict over whether technology companies can freely mine publisher content to train and power artificial intelligence models, and it places Brave’s search and summarization practices at the center of that dispute.

Prepared by Christopher Adams and reviewed by editorial team.