Google’s anti-search-scraping lawsuit dismissed

Google’s argument was that SerpApi’s actions breached the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA). It made two claims: first, that no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title, and second that no person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, or component protected by the Act.

SerpApi claimed that the URLs and other links that were being served by Google did not in themselves entail copyright and the judge agreed. In her judgment, she said that there was no indication that the copyright holders had authorized Google to take action against SerpApi.

The case is not completely over as the judge has given Google 21 days to amend its complaint to demonstrate that it was acting on behalf of the copyright owners. It remains to be seen whether its war against the web scrapers is finally over.

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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