Google Loses DMCA Claims Against SerpApi in Scraping Lawsuit

Google's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) claims against SerpApi were dismissed on July 20 by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The court granted SerpApi's motion to dismiss two of Google's DMCA claims and stayed discovery pending Google's potential amended complaint. The court permanently dismissed parts of Google's claims related to search results that did not contain copyrighted content. For claims involving search results with copyrighted content, the court dismissed them but provided Google with a 21-day window to amend its complaint. A key reason for the dismissal was Google's failure to allege facts demonstrating that its anti-scraping system, SearchGuard, was implemented and functioned with the authority of the copyright owner. The court noted that information regarding such authorization should be within Google's possession. SerpApi CEO Julien Khaleghy stated the ruling was a victory for an open internet, asserting that the court rejected Google's attempt to broaden the DMCA to control access to public web pages. SerpApi indicated its continued support for developers, AI companies, researchers, and businesses reliant on public search information. However, SerpApi did not achieve a complete victory, as the court rejected its argument that Google lacked DMCA standing based on ownership of copyrighted material. The court also found that Google had alleged sufficient facts to infer that SerpApi circumvented SearchGuard. Google initially sued SerpApi on December 19, alleging violations related to web scraping.