A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Google against SerpAPI, a service that creates an unauthorized API for search engine results pages, as first reported by www.techdirt.com. The suit, which leveraged the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Section 1201, aimed to prevent SerpAPI from scraping Google's search results. This dismissal, while allowing Google the option to refile, comes after www.techdirt.com previously highlighted the problematic nature of Google's legal action, characterizing it as "obnoxious" given the search giant's own business foundation built on web scraping.
The legal action unfolds in an era where access to data has become increasingly valuable, particularly for artificial intelligence applications. This trend has led to a rise in attempts by platforms to establish "toll booths" on parts of the open web, primarily targeting AI companies but often restricting broader access. The Google case followed a similar, ongoing lawsuit where Reddit sued SerpAPI and others, alleging DMCA 1201 violations for accessing Reddit content via Google's scrape. However, according to www.techdirt.com, Reddit held no copyright interest in user posts, and SerpAPI directly scraped Google, not Reddit.
In Google's specific case against SerpAPI, the court determined that Google lacked a legitimate copyright claim. Google had deployed a "technological protection measure" called SearchGuard, described as a CAPTCHA-like JavaScript challenge designed to differentiate human users from automated scraping software. SearchGuard aims to deny access to Google's search results from high-volume automated queries.
However, SerpAPI successfully argued that SearchGuard's function was to control general access, not specifically to protect copyrighted material. The court concurred, noting that the DMCA does not apply where the work controlled by the measure is not copyright protected. Google's complaint described its search results as compilations of publicly available information, sometimes "often" accompanied by a "Knowledge Panel" that may contain licensed copyrighted images. Crucially, Google did not allege that Knowledge Panels are always included or always contain copyrighted content, indicating a mix of protected and unprotected content. This ambiguity undermined Google's ability to claim SearchGuard "effectively controls access to a work protected under the Copyright Act."
Furthermore, the court agreed with SerpAPI that Google failed to allege SearchGuard was implemented with the "authority of the copyright owner," a specific requirement under DMCA 1201(a)(3)(B). This element necessitates that the technological measure be applied with the copyright owner's explicit authority to gain access to the work. The Ninth Circuit's interpretation firmly establishes this as a necessary component for such claims. The judge's decision highlights the narrow applicability of DMCA 1201 in cases where the underlying content's copyright status is ambiguous or where the protective measure isn't directly tied to a copyright owner's authority.
