“Google and Reddit do not own the Internet," web scraper says after court win

A court ruling has favored a web scraper in a legal battle against Google, which attempted to use the DMCA to block AI bots from scraping search results. Google and Reddit argue that such scraping violates terms of service and copyright protections, while critics view the legal strategy as an overreach.
Why it matters
The case represents a significant legal test for the future of data access, AI training, and the definition of copyright in the age of automated web scraping.
Walling off the open web? “Google and Reddit do not own the Internet,” web scraper says after court win Google’s and Reddit’s use of DMCA to fight web scraper is bizarre, expert says.
15 Plus Plus Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav After a big court loss last week, Google has confirmed that it won’t give up its fight to block AI bots from scraping its search results. And Reddit is weirdly along for the ride.
Curiously invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Google sued SerpApi last December. The search giant accused the web scraper of circumventing its anti-scraping technology and then selling content scraped from Google search results through an unauthorized “Google Search API” software service.
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