Web scraper sued by Google claims Google is the one scraping the web

SerpApi, a company that offers tools to scrape content on the web, is fighting back against Google’s copyright lawsuit that accuses it of vacuuming up search results “at an astonishing scale.” In a motion to dismiss filed on Friday, SerpApi argues that Google doesn’t hold a copyright on its search results, alleging that the engine is built “on the backs of others who posted ‘the world’s information.’”

In December, Google sued SerpApi, claiming the smaller scraper had violated the Copyright Act by using “deceptive means” to access and scrape its search results. Google also alleges that SerpApi found a way to bypass its anti-scraping SearchGuard feature. But SerpApi’s motion to dismiss argues that Google is “the largest scraper on the planet,” and that SerpApi is just doing “what Google does to everyone else:”

Just like Google — but at a much smaller scale — SerpApi uses ‘automated means’ to scrape public websites, which it then synthesizes and makes available to its own customers in ways it believes they will find relevant and useful. This, of course, is exactly what Google does.

SerpApi alleges that Google “does not claim ownership” over its search results, and that “the information it scrapes from public websites is not protected by copyright access controls.” The company also claims that it did not violate the Copyright Act by circumventing SearchGuard, because the tool is allegedly only designed to protect Google’s business — not licensed content.