“Google and Reddit do not own the Internet," web scraper says after court win
Summary
Google and Reddit have sued a company called SerpApi for using technology to scrape content from their platforms without permission. A court recently dismissed Google’s case, saying Google does not own the content it wants to protect under copyright law, making it unlikely Reddit’s similar case will succeed.Key Facts
- Google sued SerpApi in December, accusing it of bypassing anti-scraping measures to sell scraped search result data.
- Google claimed scraping harmed relationships with content owners who license material for Google’s search features.
- Reddit filed a similar lawsuit against SerpApi for scraping Reddit content found in Google search results.
- Both companies used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to try to stop SerpApi’s scraping.
- The DMCA protects copyrights, but Google and Reddit do not own the scraped content, which weakens their legal standing.
- A judge dismissed Google’s case early, saying Google lacks the right (standing) to sue under the DMCA since it doesn’t own the content.
- Experts say using the DMCA this way is unusual but shows companies’ frustration with growing AI scraping technology.
- SerpApi wants to keep fighting the lawsuits to support an open internet and reduce costly legal actions.
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