Judge allows Reddit lawsuit against SerpApi to proceed
A federal judge has allowed Reddit's lawsuit against web scraper SerpApi to proceed, boosting the platform's efforts to block AI companies from harvesting its data without licensing deals.
US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer has largely denied a motion to dismiss filed by web scraper SerpApi, keeping alive Reddit's lawsuit alleging a conspiracy with Perplexity AI to unlawfully harvest copyrighted forum discussions from Google's search index. The judge ruled that Reddit plausibly argued SerpApi provided a tool to bypass Google's access controls, which Perplexity AI paid to use. This decision comes less than two weeks after a different court dismissed a similar lawsuit brought by Google, though Google plans to amend its complaint.
To succeed under the DMCA, Reddit must prove that SerpApi and Perplexity AI conspired to access copyrighted snippets, that these snippets were protected by effective access-control technology, and that the defendants bypassed this technology. While Google failed to prove it was authorized to block scraping in its own case, Judge Engelmayer found Reddit successfully argued it had authorized Google to use its SearchGuard anti-circumvention technology. This holds true even though Google developed the security technology more than a year after signing its licensing agreement with Reddit.
Reddit's legal push centers on its ability to honor user privacy. The platform claims users delete millions of posts every month, and unauthorized scraping prevents Reddit from removing this content from Perplexity AI's engine, damaging Reddit's reputation and profits. If Reddit prevails, it seeks injunctions to block SerpApi and Perplexity AI from accessing Reddit and Google websites, stop the circumvention of Google SearchGuard, and halt the use of previously harvested data.
The ruling was not a complete loss for the defendants, as the court dismissed Reddit's claims of unjust enrichment and unfair competition because they are preempted by the Copyright Act. SerpApi's attorney, Jeff Homrig, maintained that public search results are not protected simply because a platform wants to charge for them. Meanwhile, DMCA expert Meredith Rose observed that companies are leveraging any legal tool they can find to combat the rise of AI scraping over the past three years, though she noted Reddit's legal standing is unusual because the platform is neither the copyright owner, the exclusive licensee, nor the creator of the bypassed security technology.
This is our own summary of reporting by Ars Technica AI
