Reddit has accused Perplexity for working with SerpApi to scrape content from Google search results without a license.
Reddit has been given the go ahead by a US federal judge to continue its case against Perplexity and search data scraper SerpApi.
The social media platform has accused SerpApi of working alongside Perplexity, which does not have a license to use its content, to scrape copyrighted content from Reddit posts from Google search results.
The case was first filed by Reddit in October to the US District Court and alongside SerpApi, two other data scrapers face similar allegations – Oxylabs and AWMProxy.
It initially alleged that SerpApi had used a workaround to bypass Google’s anti-scraping system, SearchGuard, to provide Perplexity with Reddit posts. In February, the social media firm amended the complaint to include allegations against Perplexity, claiming the AI company used tools provided by SerpApi to get Reddit posts.
In his ruling, US District judge Paul Engelmayer in New York, said Reddit had plausible grounds to sue Perplexity for its alleged misuse of its users’ content under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and rejected SerpApi’s motion to dismiss the case.
A Reddit spokesperson said: “[The] ruling brings us one step closer to holding bad actors accountable. Reddit supports responsible access to public content, but we oppose companies that bypass our protections, ignore our rules, and profit off our communities without permission.
“Redditors create some of the most valuable human conversations on the Internet. We intend to protect them.”
Reddit had also alleged that suffered “reputational harm” in regards to privacy as the platform not only publishes content from users, but also has “tens and thousands of posts, comments and other original works authored by Reddit itself”.
Engelmayer rejected those claims for now, but stated if Reddit’s allegations were proven, it could support it.
A Perplexity spokesperson said: “Reddit’s suit claims the right to control access to public web pages it doesn’t own, using a security tool it didn’t build, on behalf of users it hasn’t asked. We’re going to defend the open internet, and we’re going to win.”
The ruling comes just a few weeks after Google’s complaint against SerpApi over allegedly scaping search results data was dismissed by a different US federal judge.
SerpApi has responded accusing Google and Reddit of trying to “use the DMCA to wall off the open Internet by retroactively claiming control over content that they didn’t author and don’t own”.
Reddit and Google are looking to prove that Serppi and Perplexity AI conspired to gain access to snippets of published works covered by the Copyright Act, also protected by a tech feature which controls access and that this controlling feature was sidestepped.
If Reddit is successful in its legal challenge, online publishers – who have been struggling to get credit or compensation for content used by LLMs – could be poised to force all AI scrapers to enter licensing agreements.
