Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped
4 hours ago
- A judge dismissed Google's DMCA 1201 lawsuit against SerpAPI for scraping its search results, ruling that the law only protects copyrighted content, not general access control.
- Google's SearchGuard (a CAPTCHA system) was deemed not a valid technological protection measure under DMCA because it controls access to non-copyrighted compilations of public data.
- The court highlighted that Google's own business was built on scraping the web, making its lawsuit appear hypocritical.
- Google can refile a narrower case targeting only copyrighted elements like the Knowledge Panel, but the core DMCA claims were rejected.
- The ruling reinforces open web principles, preventing companies from using DMCA to block scraping of non-copyrighted public data.